I've been wondering...

For a long time, I've wondered how left out people with disabilities feel in most situations... I knew there were people with special needs or problems that made life harder for them than most others since I was a little girl. I first learned the ASL manual alphabet when I was around kindergarden age. But as I've gotten older, I've been more and more curious. I know that even being in a wheelchair gets you treated differently by a lot of people, and not usually in remotely good ways either... so when you have trouble communicating with those around you things have to be so much worse, I'd imagine.

I've always really enjoyed social experiments. They are really fascinating. I love conducting them also. Now, since this term at school's started I've looked further into deaf cultural than I ever had regularly done before and I've also done some experiments. I've found that there is a huge lack of services for the deaf or hearing impaired. I've found that a lot of places have really recently even started trying. I've found a rare few surprising bus drivers who recognize ASL (they were really nice.) But mostly, I've found myself with more questions than before...:

• Why don't more places have interpreters/operators?
• Why don't more people learn ASL?
• Why do I never hear about deaf or hearing impaired unless they or something about their culture is being made fun of, with the exception of the show "Switched At Birth" (which just came out this season)?
• Why do so many people think ASL is a joke or unnecessary in some way?
• Why do so many people not treat ASL like it's an actual language?
• Why do so few people never want to learn even the most basic phrases?
• Why are so many ASL sites so poorly constructed?
• Why aren't there more completely free, really useful resources out there for those of us who WANT to learn?

I could go on with more questions like this for just about ever...