I once heard culture defined in it's most simplest terms as "what we make or what we do." That doesn't mean there aren't other schools of thought on how it could or should be defined, I just happened to like that one. When I think of race and culture, to use familial expressions, they are more like close cousins than identical twins. For example, there are individuals who, although they may describe themselves the same racially, may not readily except or, in most instances will actually dispute that they are the same culturally,and rightfully so; I think too often in our society, in our particular world station we like to think of the two as "naturally' flowing together and it is not only an innaccurate assumption to make, it is also an unfair one. Culture is not bound by any geographical, sociological or even environmental realities but in contrast is ever changing; any culture that fails to adapt to these realities is a doomed one.

Most when they think of affirmative action, think of governmental policies throughout the most recent decades that have sought to make amends for discriminatory practices that were in place that gave preference to White people. Through affirmative action, other so-called races were to be given "preferential treatment" which led to Whites adopting the phrase "reverse discrimination" to describe what they felt was happening to them as a direct result; sort of a "roll reversal" if you will.

Given a bare bones definition, affirmative action can describe preferential treatment given to any group, and that would certainly describe White people in this country. When we think of the housing market strategies that successfully kept other so-called races out of the pool of prospective buyers, and the fact that so many companies that have been owned by Whites that gave preferential employment opportunities to other Whites can both be offered up as concrete examples of where Whites by far have been the major benefactors of affirmative action as a rule in our country. Going further, statistics have shown that White women more specifically are the largest benefactors of affirmative action programming. Still, our realm of vision on this subject rests in large measure with how other so-called races are supposedly reaping the most reward.

Oppression for me is the lived reality of being a person of limited power; This fits quite well with the definition of racism that explains how power plays out within a racist society. For our particular society, Whites have experienced the bulk of that power-this isn't to say that we can't find examples of where there are not so powerful Whites, we certainly can. However, our nation was built on the idea that those who have White identity would stand the greater opportunities for experiencing power. When there is a balance of power, there is no oppression. The oppression model in a racialized society, even one where we experience other kinds of inequalities that may make the playing field "appear" to seem equal, such as classism, the fact remains that the race hierarchy structure is there to protect the interests of Whites at the expense of a more powerful and power-filled experience for other so called races.