Discussing Breast Cancer

The other day when I was in my oncologist’s office I overhead a woman talking on her cell phone. She was telling her mother about the Pink Tea she was attending today. I thought, wow, I wish I was going to a Pink Tea. It sounded fun. Feminine. In our world of breast cancer, our sense of our own femininity can be elusive. We’re losing our breasts, we’re losing our hair. Both breasts and hair make us as women feel decidedly feminine. So I tuned into the rest of the conversation.

The Pink Tea to which she was referring was sponsored by Sister’s Journey; that’s a powerful, faith based support group. She was a beautiful black woman. The Sister’s Journey website doesn’t say this, but the woman whose conversation I overhead did: it’s specifically for African-American women.

Now, I’m sure the group wouldn’t exclude a woman who wanted to join who was not of color (well, I’d like to think they wouldn’t). But even the name “sister” made me instantly think it wasn’t for someone who wasn’t “a sister”. Even if we are ALL sisters in our breast cancer family, the sisterhood of black American/African-American women is a strongly rooted one in our society.

Women of color have their own concerns, their own battles. Why it was recently reported in the Chicago Sun-Times that “Chicago’s breast cancer death rate is 68 percent higher in black women than in white women.” They need to stick together and support each other. Just like I relate to other young mothers stricken with the disease, black women relate to other black women with the disease, unmarried girls in their twenties relate to other unmarried girls in their twenties … each group has their own issue, their own cross to bear.

I didn’t realize Latino women with breast cancer also faced a higher mortality rate. That’s why the Chicago nightclub Rumba is putting on an event I’d love to go to: Dance Pink. That takes place on Tuesday
October 30, 2007 (Rumba is at 351 West Hubbard Street). You’d enjoy a Salsa lesson, hear a live Salsa band and house music DJ. They’ll also have dance cards for charity, a prize drawing and silent auction featuring a number of donated items. Tickets at the door are $50, FYI. Send me pictures if you go.

So, it looks like women of color band together — with support groups, with fundraising events — much like Caucasian women. A woman I interviewed recently for an article I wrote stated that breast cancer is a great equalizer. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, black or white, fat or thin, gay or straight … we’re all united.