Mary J. Blige on cancer awareness

Mary J. Blige got emotional while talking about cancer awareness for Black women …

Transcript

00:00I lost aunts, not an aunt, but several family members to breast cancer,

00:08grandmother to cervical cancer, lung cancer,

00:12and it just keeps going on and on and on and on every time I look around.

00:24Before we ever knew even knew they were sick, because the practice of not wanting

00:29other people in our business and keeping these topics to ourselves

00:33is so deeply rooted into our culture. It wasn't until many years later that I learned that being

00:39proactive about our health is not something we should keep to ourselves. That's why I've

00:45dedicated a great deal of my time to increasing awareness of the importance of preventative

00:51screenings, reminding people that their health is their wealth, and urging them to make it a priority.

00:59It's not always easy, we all know that. Time is a huge barrier for all women. There are also

01:06a lot of misconceptions about mammograms, and for black women many fear a cancer diagnosis

01:14and becoming a burden to the family if diagnosed. And while the screening rate for black women and

01:21white women are comparable, black women are more likely to be screened at lower resource

01:27facilities and also experience longer intervals between detection, diagnosis, and treatment.

01:35That's why milestones like Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the work you all are doing

01:41here over the next few days is so important. I'm convinced that if all my aunts, my godmother,

01:50my grandparents would see, oh god, would have the opportunity to see a campaign like the ones

02:01on which I partnered with the Black Women's Health Imperative that directed them to go for information,

02:10they would have a different outcome today.