in English, comma separated lists of adjectives or other descriptors are almost always understood to have AND between them, not OR. OR must be explicit, otherwi

in English, comma separated lists of adjectives or other descriptors are almost always understood to have AND between them, not OR. OR must be explicit, otherwise AND is implicitly assumed. This is not just a matter of two equally valid alternative explanations: a reasonable reading of the original sentence "not poor, not white" (along a minimal amount of thought about the context and subject matter, e.g. prisons clearly are not full of rich blacks) would have easily led to the other person realizing that it was category 4 that the parent was talking about, not 1-3.