by Reid Fitzsimons (Preface: The word “culture” is used frequently; perhaps overused. We have cultural icons, cultural appropriation, and culture wars; a privileged person might view his or herself as being highly cultured for listening to NPR or patronizing expensive sushi bars, and we have cultures associated with black, white and every skin tone in between. In reality it’s difficult to define the word, but I recall the professor from my Cultural Anthropology 101 class at the University of Wyoming in 1977, who succinctly stated culture is “learned behavior.”

In order to make the point of this article I need to be a little autobiographical. I was raised in the almost exclusively white Maryland suburbs outside of Washington, DC. While wealth is always relative, we were certainly well off, not country club/private school rich (there were plenty of those households around), but we had a spacious house, two cars, membership in a community swimming club with tennis courts, and took family vacations. The typical and expected trajectory was to complete high school, graduate from college, perhaps go to grad school to become a lawyer, accountant, or obtain an MBA, get a well paying job, start a family in a nice house in the suburbs, and repeat the cycle.