LAURINBURG — October means wrapping up in long-sleeved shirst, driving down roads lined with brightly colored trees, pumpkin flavoring infused into every item imaginable and weekends spent watching football. But something else comes to mind when people think of October — the color pink.
Everywhere you look during football games whether it’s in college or the NFL, everything is pink — whistles, shoes, armbands and coaches headsets. Grocery stores have pink lights in their check-out lanes to go along with the pink cookies, cream cheese and gum. If the food can’t be turned pink then the label probably is.
So why is the world so rosy?
In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a widespread campaign to promote breast cancer research, prevention, and treatment. Breast cancer is an awful disease and according to the American Cancer Society over 246,000 women and 2,600 men will be diagnosed with an invasive form of breast cancer in 2016.
My mom had a breast cancer scare this year when she went for her annual mammogram. The doctor said they found a suspicious lump and needed her to come back in two weeks for another ultrasound. Thankfully it was just a shadow on the mammogram and everything was fine.
All month NFL announcers have been promoting the league’s Crucial Catch Day, a nationwide event to provide breast cancer education and low-cost screenings in poor communities. They casually throw into the broadcast, “Be sure to get those mammograms,” as they talk about why everything in the stadium and on the players is pink.
But there is another important color that people should remember in October — purple.
Purple is the color of Domestic Violence Awareness, another cause that uses October as it’s awareness month. But you won’t see the NFL donning purple to support the cause since too many of their players are guilty of being abusers.
Ray Rice, former running back for the Baltimore Ravens, was caught on surveillance camera hitting his then fiance (now wife) Janay Palmer unconscious in a hotel elevator in 2014.
The video then showed Rice dragging Palmer’s unconscious body out of the elevator. Rice only received a two-game suspension from the NFL for his actions and the charges against him were dropped.
Since the Rice incident, the NFL has changed their domestic violence policy and now first-time offenders receive a six-game suspension and a lifetime ban for a second offense — which is a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough.
You’ll never hear the NFL announcers give listeners a friendly reminder not to beat their spouses or how the league has teamed up with the Domestic Violence Awareness Project to make sure people aren’t victimized or killed by their partners or loved ones.
Domestic violence is a uncomfortable topic, because it involves people. Breast cancer is easy to support because cancer isn’t someone’s son, daughter, mother or father hurting a person it’s abnormal cells.
According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the definition of domestic violence is the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systematic pattern of power and control perpetrated by one intimate partner against another.
It includes physical violence, sexual violence, psychological violence, and emotional abuse. But just like with anything else, people always say that won’t happen to me. Well statistics show that one in three women and one in four men have been victims of some form of physical violence in their lifetime — still don’t think it can happen to you?
So did I.
On May 8, 2009, around 11 p.m., I was standing in a circle with all the members of the Class of 2009 as the final hour of my senior prom came to a close. At that exact same time, my best friend’s mother, Christy Lynn Grice was shot and killed outside her home by her ex-husband.
When I got to the hospital I could tell something was horribly wrong. My best friend’s grandmother Bonnie, came out of a room and delivered the bad news — I fell to the floor and all I could hear was this horrible noise. That noise was the sound of me screaming.
I tried to pull myself together because I knew my best friend would need me to be strong. When she came out of the room where officers had been talking to her, she was still wearing her prom dress, make-up smeared and eyes puffy from crying.
They asked me to go with her to the bathroom so she didn’t try to hurt herself.
As I shut the door to the restroom she looked up at me and said, “Amber please tell me this is just a bad dream.” With tears rolling down my face all I said was, “I wish I could.”
Christy’s ex-husband was questioned by the police, but was released due to lack of evidence. The next day he shot and killed himself. No one could believe he was capable of the horrific crime he committed, he was a volunteer firefighter, loved by the community — but he was an abuser.
My best friend had to graduate high school and college without her mom. She picked out her wedding dress and will get married next October without her mom — all because of domestic violence.
Yes, it’s an uncomfortable thing to talk about but it’s time to break the silence and paint the town purple.
Amber Hatten can be reached at 910-506-3170.
