Hello, All:
I have been reading with great interest everyone's ideas about the merging of lists and concepts.  To me, the fusion of poverty, race, women, and literacy (or PRWL) into a widely recognized amalgam brings no surprise.  It simply reinforces an old set of widely-held negative stereotypes that limit positive thinking.  I must admit, however, that the linking of these for concepts jars me each time I see the tag, for it begins with "poverty," a term clearly meant to indicate an undesirable condition, and then adds three concepts, "race," "women," and "literacy," that are issues to be addressed and that have been at the forefront of social reform for the last two hundred years.  Now, as professionals we are all too aware, as many have noted, that women, minorities, the poor, and the illiterate have been marginalized; that women and minorities historically have earned less than men, the "old" working majority; that there still exists great disparity between what women of any ethnicity can do and earn, even in today's marketplace; and that literacy, the acquisition of language and skills required to negotiate successfully our society has never been the property of the underserved. 

Yet, there is something almost prophetic about what has most recently occurred here, as if by witnessing the merging of these two lists we are also witnessing some giant hand, silently pushing back years of  tedious, incremental gains on all four fronts.  However, as has been noted by some of our colleagues, perhaps the best approach to this might be to ignore the hype and use PRWL to our own advantage.  Although this is not our concept, and certainly from what I read not our choice, we can keep the image of the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" as they might be interpreted, although the traditional four named Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death, were actually concepts universally held to be undesirable in any circumstance and not some slippery attempt to slide the bulk of our burgeoning population's rights out the window once again.  

What concerns me most about all this now is what I see in my private practice as  a life and career management consultant.  Because I am a cognitive psychologist with a strong social and behavioral sciences background, I approach my work in a multi-dimensional wa, integrating several factors into my working model.  My clients so far have been almost all women and minorities, and without exception their level of literacy has played into their ability to live a happy and successful life.  (For more on this please email or see my website www.sinclairsystem.com.)  Sometimes their limitations are the result of social and cultural illiteracy, as well as a lack of education.  Sometimes their problems stem from some set of transitions they must endure to reach their goals.  But I do see clearly traces of this old stereotype in everything they present, for they have in their own minds this idea, this fusion, from years of social exposure, all of which serves to underscore their own sense of marginalization.  And it does make me see that this now reinforced concept, PRWL, has a greater hold on our society than I had seen before.

Please do let me hear from anyone interested in what I am doing, and thanks so much for this list.

Dr. Judith Peyton Sinclair
Cognitive Psychologist & Educator
Life & Career Management Consultant
www.sinclairsystem.com


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