Here’s a plea I submitted to the White House today. If you are so moved, please forward your own request via www.whitehouse.gov/contact. Feel free to cut and paste from the letter below or simply register your support by including the headline of this entry and the link for this entry (http://mynewyorkminute.org/?p=106 ) in the body of your message. Select “Non-policy issue” and “First Family” in the pull down menu. Let’s see if we can put some grass roots into action.
Dear President and First Lady Obama:
Okay, it might have sounded more impressive when President Reagan asked Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Reagan’s intent was to free millions from oppressive rule. But my plea is not so different. All I’m asking for is a little assistance to help free millions of American men and their families from the oppressive and often lethal grip of prostate cancer. All I want to do is shed a bit of light—blue light—on the subject.
Many American men don’t take notice of subtleties. Perhaps lighting the residence of the leader of the free world blue for a few nights in September (National Prostate Cancer Awareness Month) might make a few take notice. “Hey… what’s that about..?” “Honey…, it’s about your prostate…” “My what…?” Every bit helps.
During the two years I have worked at the Prostate Cancer Foundation, I have desired to see a public landmark lit blue for the cause. Last year I spent four months trying to have the Empire State Building lit blue. I thought we had it. But in the end, the lighting went yellow and white to celebrate the reopening of a museum in Brooklyn. Now I believe art is an admirable cause, but people in the free world aren’t literally dying of it. What’s more, just a few weeks prior to our requested lighting date, New York’s famous landmark tower was ablaze in pink and white light for breast cancer awareness. The White House, the control tower at New York’s JFK airport, Niagara Falls, Los Angeles International Airport, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, among others, have all been pinkified in the fall.
You have to truly admire the mobilization around the breast cancer cause—it is to women what prostate cancer is to men. It’s extremely important. But what about us guys? Aren’t we needed too? Do we have to walk around carrying blue flashlights in the night randomly flashing them on public buildings and landmarks to get noticed?
Yes, as a recently diagnosed prostate cancer patient, I am a bit biased. But I am not asking that the lights be turned on just for me. Let’s do it to honor the more than 300,000 American men who have died from prostate cancer in the past decade; for the more than 192,000 new cases that will be diagnosed this year (that’s where I fit in); for the 300,000 possible new cases that might be diagnosed each year by 2015; for the 27,000 men in the U.S. who will die from it this year (one man every 19 minutes); for those men with a family history and whose odds of being diagnosed are doubled; for African-American men who are 60 percent more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer and 2.4 times more likely to die from it; for the nearly 2.5 million American men and their families who are currently challenged by this cancer.
For one, or for all, let’s just do it. Let’s light 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue blue this September.
Respectfully,
Dan Zenka
Vice President, Communications, Prostate Cancer Foundation
Prostate Cancer Patient
Mr. President, Light That White House Blue… PLEASE.
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