For those of you who are not in the mood to read my reactions about the
discussion we have been having about the upcoming list merger (women and
literacy with poverty, race and literacy), I will start with information
first, and share my thoughts later.

Here is the information:
On November 6th, the new poverty race women, and literacy list will be
open with me as the facilitator, and this list (women and literacy) will
be closed (although archives of postings will still be available).
You will not need to UNSUBSCRIBE from the women and literacy list. 
You will need to SUBSCRIBE to the poverty race women, and literacy
list. In other words, just because you are subscriber to this list, does
not mean that you can assume that you will be a subscriber of the new
list. You need to actually subscribe. In the next few days, NIFL will
post information about how to do this.

Here are my reactions:
Wow-what a rich discussion we had here these last two week about the
upcoming list merger ! Thanks to all for sharing your thoughts!
I would like to respond to some of them:
1. A few wondered on list and off list whether we could convince NIFL
to change its mind. I checked with NIFL, and unfortunately there is
nothing we can do about it for this year (November 2006-October 2007).
However, the good news is that they are open to us discussing this for
the following year. So my suggestion to this group, is let us see what
this new merger brings us. If we like it, then fine. If we don't, and we
end up missing a listserv devoted specifically to women and literacy I
will bring this up to NIFL next summer on our behalf.
2. A few mentioned on the list and off the list changing the name of
the list. Some of you mentioned that we just may as well call it The
oppressed and literacy (I have to admit, I had a similar reaction),
others wondered about why homophobia is not included (I have wondered
this too, and have encouraged discussion about orientation and literacy
on this listserv). I checked with NIFL about whether we could have a
voice in the name of the listserv. Apparently we can have for the
future, but we can't do it for this present year. So once again, I think
that we should revisit this issue next summer and see if we want to
change the name of the newly formed list.
3. I want to reassure all of you, that I will continue to facilitate a
safe community. You may be reassured to know that 40% of current poverty
race list members are on this list, and 46% of us are currently on the
poverty race list! So a good part of the new community, will include a
lot of people who already "know" each other, and know the type of
listserv atmosphere we value.
4. Some of you mentioned that although discussing intersections is
important, there is also value talking about separate issues. I want to
stress, that I don't see the new listserv as only talking about
intersections. I think that many times, perhaps even most of the time,
we will be talking about women only, or race only, or poverty only.
Other times we will intersect two of these factor, other times all of
them.

Feel free to post anymore questions/concerns to this listserv, or to me
personally (dgreenberg at gsu.edu).

Daphne



Daphne Greenberg
Assistant Professor
Educational Psych. & Special Ed.
Georgia State University
P.O. Box 3979
Atlanta, Georgia 30302-3979
phone: 404-651-0127
fax:404-651-4901
dgreenberg at gsu.edu

Daphne Greenberg
Associate Director
Center for the Study of Adult Literacy
Georgia State University
P.O. Box 3977
Atlanta, Georgia 30302-3977
phone: 404-651-0127
fax:404-651-4901
dgreenberg at gsu.edu