I was sitting in my American Culture class, dubbed AMCULT, by us students. It fulfilled my senior requirement and didn't meet on Fridays - I was sold.

The racial make-up of the student body at my high school is very diverse. One day the teacher did some sort of visual grouping assessment.

"Those born in the midwest stand here, those from the south here, those from the northeast here, and west coast here."

There wasn't much to see from round one, but as the rounds went on our perceptions of groups unfolded.

Another question started with all 40 of us in a corner. The teacherr asked, "if you plan, after graduating from high school, to go on to a four year college, stand here." We watched as the WASPs moved over to their area. The students slowly started working the number downwards. Next went the Asians, then the suburban whites, followed by the blacks and hispanics. By the end the only people left were a scattering of white people, plainly dressed.

The next question grouped us by where we we live. "Suburbans here, rural here, and city there," the teacher announced. Nearly every white and Asian person went to stand in the suburban category. Half the blacks went to the city, and the other half went to the suburbs. The rural crowd? ... you guessed it, the same scattering of white people with the lowest percentage stating they were planning on attending a four year college.

We stood in our respective groups and looked around, we were seemingly one giant stereotype come to life.

The teacher then asked. "Those of you planning on going to college, where do you think you'll live, not where you want to live, but where you believe you'll live."

The suburbans stood firm, a few whites moved to the city group. Half the blacks from the city moved to the suburb group. The rural white kids? They all stood firm. I thought about wanting rural, but deep down I figured I'd be city again, and my gut was right.

One of the other thoughts that this impromptu grouping exercise confirmed in my head was that rural white schools are often times worse off than inner city black schools. In our class the rural white students were the least likely to attend college followed by city blacks.

It was because of this exercise that I became skeptical of affirmative action. In my mind the affirmative action policies probably only increase the number of minority students at the suburban level at the expense of the city blacks and rural whites. Nothing is solved by this policy as rural whites and city blacks still underachieve. How do we solve this problem? Put the wasted money into improving educational standards for areas that underachieve. Easier said than done.