Canes and Labels

I suppose I should put this in a more polite or literary way, but that also would just be compensating for other people’s comfort. There's got to be a limit to that, and I choose clarity: The expectation that I try even harder to make others more comfortable with my disability really pisses me off.
This is especially true with the suggestion that using a blind man’s cane would make complete strangers more comfortable.
I owe complete strangers more of my personal efforts why?
I don’t ask for political correctness I acknowledge limitations and ask for little help. If some minor point of compensation seems odd seems like I am asking too much, I readily and politely explain that I am visually impaired.
One recent need for a strange request that required an explanation to a stranger: I had to ask an old bat of a cashier at Home Depot to put my purchase in a bag instead of pointing to the bags for me to do it myself.
The recent argument with two close friends about cane use is far from the first time I have heard the suggestion. People cannot see with my eyes to know how and when I can or cannot see something specific. I am not blind, in the sense of living in total darkness. I am severely visually impaired, and the multiple factors and causes of that do make it difficult for people to figure out what I can or cannot see. I compensate for that already, so don’t ask for more.
The first cane suggestion was from the editor of a "disability culture" magazine who objected to my joke tagline that I do not use a cane because I am too afraid I will beat people with it when they persist in getting in my way anyway.
I think I disappointed the editor by not embracing the equipment and politics of the "disability culture." So far, while acknowledging my growing limitations and being as candid as possible about things, I have not let myself fall into whining, or succumbed to self pity. The most common way I have learned I cannot do things is by trying to do them. I have not internalized being blind or otherwise handicapped as part of my self concept.
Here in Rhode Island, it is considered discriminatory to state that an apartment being advertised is "in sight of" a landmark or "a short walk from" a bus stop or grocery store. I find that absurd. I have no expectation that the rest of the human race should be, or pretend to be, handicapped just because I and other people are. I forget the source–maybe an old Little River Band song?–but have always embraced a line that says something to the effect of "if the human race runs only as fast as the slowest runner, we get nowhere."
I just don’t buy into political correctness at the cost of frankness, and at this point in my existence as a gimp, a cane would be more of a label than a tool.