Hey, What's With the White Cane?.
Honest depictions of disabled people have vanished from popular
culture.. By Jim Knipfel . Oct. 15 is national White Cane Safety Day,
first decreed by
President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Never heard of it? You're not
alone. I'll admit, even as a blind man who uses a white cane on a
daily basis, Oct.
15 doesn't get my heart racing, save for one irony: It's not just the
day that Americans don't recognize; increasingly it's the white cane
and what it
symbolizes. Think of it as another kind of blindness. I began noticing
the signs roughly seven years ago. My wife and I were in New York City
on a Saturday
night, working our way down a crowded sidewalk on our way to a show.
The going seemed unusually slow and frustrating, even for New York.
Soon the reason
was clear: No one was stepping out of the way to let us pass. Some
were transfixed by cellphones, but others looked directly at us,
looked at my cane with
some confusion, and still refused to take a step in either direction.
I soon realized that many people under the age of 35, not just in New
York City,
but across the country, no longer know what a white cane represents.
On more than one occasion, people in their 20s have approached me and
asked, "What's
that cane for? For millennia the blind have used canes and staffs as
navigational tools to help detect obstacles in our path. After World
War II, with
so many blind veterans returning home, the standard cane design was
refashioned. Mobility sticks grew longer and were wrapped in red and
white reflective
tape. By the time LBJ made his 1964 declaration, the white cane was an
accepted part of the culture. So how could a symbol of disability as
common as the
wheelchair so abruptly vanish from our collective consciousness? A
friend has a theory. In the 1980s and '90s, as political correctness
began infiltrating
popular culture, it became verboten to portray the disabled,
particularly the blind, in anything perceived to be an unflattering
light. In a blink, bumbling
characters with white canes, once a mainstay of slapstick films,
cartoon shorts and comic strips, vanished. What blind characters we
did get now had superpowers
or were masters of the martial arts, and rarely had any use for a
white cane, even as a signifier. As a result, children who once grew
up with images of
characters with white canes no longer saw them, and so the common
understanding of the blind and our symbology began to fade. Questions
of "dignity," "respect"
and "inclusion" aside, expunging blind characters from pop culture for
fear of offending someone has had dangerous repercussions when it
comes to the daily
lives of blind Americans. If fewer and fewer people recognize its
meaning, what use does the cane maintain as a symbol directed at the
sighted? Pedestrians
who once stepped out of the way are now occasionally hostile
obstacles. And with hybrid and electric cars growing quieter, walking
just a few blocks in
a well-known neighborhood can become a perilous journey. Despite all
the far-reaching achievements of the Americans with Disabilities Act,
the tool that
I and other blind Americans have trusted to give us some modicum of
protection and visibility is fast losing all meaning. Ironically, the
best way for
us to mark White Cane Safety Day may well be to stay home. Mr.
Knipfel, a former staff writer for the New York Press, is the author
of "Residue" (Red Hen
Press, 2015). .
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