In a recent TV show in which he appeared, Dutch cabaret perfomrer Vincent Bijlo apparently showed a dislike for use of the white cane. On Twitter, people are debating whether this has to do with him accepting or not accepting his blindness. At first, I commented that I, too, have an issue with the white cane which is somewhat related to trouble accepting blindness, but that I didn’t want to judge Bijlo’s reasons for not using a cane.
Someone pointed out that Bijlo is making himself rather vulnerable by talking about his blindness in his performances, so it is hard to find evidence that he doesn’t accept his blindness. This is true: you may like his shows or not – I for one have gotten used to them by now -, but he is rather open about his blindness.
Also, there may be other reasons for not using the white cane as often or as properly as should. I for one find it very hard to use the cane properly, and, while I do use it off institution grounds and don’t have a problem with this, I do prefer to walk sighted guide. This has nothing to do with my not wanting to look blind. In fact, I’m well aware that, as I walk sighted guide, I look more stereotypically blind than if I learned to use the white cane properly. But so what? I don’t need to look like the superblind person I am not.
And it is quite common knowledge that Bijlo is not superblind. Why should he be? Because he is a performer and sets an example for other blind people more than others do? Well, I have never felt that it is blind people’s responsibility to make sure sighted people don’t have stereotypes. And even if it were, it wouldn’t be our responsibility to defeat all stereotypes at once. In fact, it is known that this doesn’t work. And Bijlo, of course, does belong to the 25% of blind people who have a job. I don’t think he needs to bear the burden of defeating other stereotypes just because he is well-known. I do see that the sighted are seeing Bijlo as the poster puppet for blind people in the Netherlands, but as a blind community, we shouldn’t be reinforcing this.
He also belongs to the 100% of leftist performers who are really irritating and unfunny.
I have a friend, who uses a white cane, he suffers a great deal of prejudice from that, particular from people who do not believe him blind (he is in fact partially sighted and monocular) however he has reasons for using the cane, as I have reasons for using a walking stick.
One thing my mum and I were against was the notion of the “supercrip” that is to say the the person who embodied all the non disabled stereotypes of “battling disability” and making life absurdly difficult for themselves as a result. The result of that does nothing for every other disabled person who simply wishes to use any aid that makes there life easier.
Unfortunately the world is never as black and white as it appears or we would like it to be as both my mum and I have this much in common, the ability to ignore pain and fatigue when we believe in something, it killed her.
I am no fan of Tom Shakespeare, I’ve had a go at him on numerous occasions, but he did make this provocative point at a conference some years ago, regarding all of us social model proud of our impairments types. He challenged whether we would want to swap the impairment we had accommodated and lived around for something more severe.
It is a challenging one, say for instance some fairy godmother could have said to me when I was younger, will you swap your flexible body for a typical one as otherwise it will cause you pain and sleepless nights in the future. Would I have let her wave the magic wand?