Reading my last post, I can understand how it might seem that I was making light of a serious subject. In no way was I trying to be facetious. I was frustrated at the dialogue, and wanted to simplify my point and make it as clear as possible. I was having trouble getting my head around the way "culture" and "race" are brought together. It seemed that the more you thought about race and culture, the less sense it made to try to define them.

Yet I do understand how, in a multicultural society, cultural items and representations should reflect the true nature of that society. This is not always the case, and this point was made particularly clear in the reading. We look at prime time television, advertisements, the image of "Jesus Christ," fashion houses, "old boys" clubs--all different reflections and determinating forces of values, and notice how dominant the image of "white" as power or beauty is in many spheres.

I would like to think that this trend is changing. If I understand Berry's point correctly, however, I am led to think about how while it may not be strictly white people in charge in today's culturally dominant or "mainstream" North American society, it has been white people that set the terms of power and how power is to be gained. That is, the major players are not necessarily white, but the game that they must play to be powerful is one whose rules were determined for the most part by white people years ago.

I am thinking now of the documentary in theatres now, In the Shadow of the Moon, about the American astronauts who traveled to the moon in the past century. It strikes me today that all of the 24 astronauts were white men. It was not explicit that this was a cause for concern back when the spacecrafts were actually being built. While this fact glares at you throughout the film, we cannot discount the cultural achievement of actually building the Apollo spacecrafts and going up out into space. That they were all white speaks to something very ugly about the American culture of the time. But the dominant social, economic, and political culture of America sent human beings into outer space. The science behind and experience of space travel was interesting to me, and seemed of primary interest to the astronauts themselves.

Unfortunately the facts speak for themselves but I would like to hope for the future. Whatever culture may come to be, substantially or meaningfully, hopefully we will be open-minded enough not to uphold any one culture over another, or any one race over another. Hopefully we will be open-minded enough not to engage in any form of prejudice, traditional or otherwise.