[blindlaw] Canes and Blindness

[WB]

>From my reading of Mark's statement....and he can defend his own....but I
didn't see where he said not to use a cane.

One problem in this e-mail  trail and others is that many times, myself
included, read what we want to out of a person's statement rather than what
they really said.  I guess, as in court, yowe cannot come to an amicable
resolution if the facts are not taken into consideration.

I'm sure there will be a statement regarding this one that may take a word
or two out of context.



-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of David Andrews
Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 2:38 PM
To: NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List
Subject: [blindlaw] Canes and Blindness

Mark:

I suppose it is a goal to "blend in and not stand out" as you say, 
but not just in a physical sense.  I want to be a part of society, an 
equal, getting the bad and the good do along with my sighted 
counterparts.  With the tools available to me today, cane, dog etc., 
I will always stand out some.  So instead of trying to hide that I 
need to be proud of my blindness and promote a positive attitude 
towards those tools and blind people, so the stigma goes away.  There 
is a stigma because we are not equals -- our unemployment rate etc. 
prove that.  When we change that it won't matter that we carry a 
cane, use a dog etc.  We won't change attitudes by not using canes 
and the like though.

Dave

At 08:00 PM 3/28/2010, you wrote:
>I'm not quibbling with the white cane as a mobility tool.  However,
>recently a thread started here about carrying a white cane merely to
>identify oneself as blind, so as not to cause confusion when being
>unable to read name tags, etc., at a symposium or whatever.  It was
>put forth that canes should be carried, in addition to any value they
>may have as a mobility aid, merely to identify a blind person as
>blind, and to allow the sighted to give them a "handicap," in not
>being able to read name tags.  For this purpose, a sign declaring "I
>am blind, please act accordingly," would serve just as well, it seems
>to me, and the white cane then becomes a stigma-maker, not a tool.
>For purposes of this discussion, the "white," color of the cane
>becomes the "distress cry of the blind," or something; the identifying
>mark by which blind people are known and warn their surroundings that
>they are in fact in need of a handicap.  This is one reason why I want
>to use a cane that's other than white with a red tip.  It is very true
>that, even with my guide dog, when I wear sunglasses, I am often
>mistaken for a dog-walker, not a guide dog user.  It's like that old
>left-handed compliment, "No one would know you're blind, you do that
>so well."  That infuriates me when it's said to me.  It seems that
>some here are trying to avoid just this situation--being mistaken for
>a sighted person--when I should think that was the ultimate goal of
>any blind person--to blend in and not stand out.


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