I have always thought that I had a firm grip on the concept of cultural appropriation and could vouch for why everything from where I lived to where I went to school was predominately white.

It was not until I moved to Tallahassee that I could see a major difference in how diverse this college town is compared to the provinciality of Sarasota, Florida. From the age differences, types of people, and even the conditions of most parts of town were vastly dissimilar.

Sitting in my freshman English class which I dreaded, my TA, I felt, had it out for me. Everything I would contribute to the class I feel as though she would combat me for. Being the student that I am and having participation be part of my grade, I would not let that discourage me.

When the concept of cultural appropriation had come up during a class discussion, she made the argument that the role of the Kardashians was to dominate social media and act as "trendsetters," even though they take other people's culture and make it in to 'trends.' I agreed with her and this all made good sense, until she went after my man Tom Cruise and his role in The Last Samurai as being cultural appropriation making that the last straw.

My TA was of African American descent and she wore it like a banner, arguing that this was a form of taking away from the black community and placing it into popular culture that is predominately white or seen through what is referred to as the "white lens."

I couldn’t see it as clearly as she did but I didn’t deny its presence. So I started talking about how Beyoncé and the abstract article I read about “The Day Beyoncé Turned Black” which I assumed hit a nerve for her and she retorted that “because you are white, you don’t know what you’re talking about” a phrase I will never forget.

Naturally, I was insulted because how could she tell me I was ignorant because of something I couldn’t change, like the color of my skin? How does that affect how I view things?

Why would it take her being the first ever African American professor I had for someone to in a sense, "try me," based on something I saw as insignificant, as skin color when it came to understanding something as simple as movies and roles that are given out to white people as opposed to other minorities?

Ultimately was our color difference what had made our viewpoints skewed and biased and did the others in the class feel the same way?

It wasn’t until about a year later, still in shock from the phrase, that I had come to realize that she wasn’t insulting me but rather subconsciously pushing me forward into understanding that there is still an issue with race and the arts and the way to fix it is through hegemony of the school systems.

Better yet, the issue of race is not just in the arts but society as a whole that prompted my epiphany of my misunderstanding of the African American struggle because I was guided by the overwhelming presence of the "white lens ", questioning whether I was groomed to think this way, as if through my education and lack of emphasis on the works of minorities due to the School Board being run by predominantly white members had stunted me.

With more diversification in classes and teachers then can we begin to see a shift in the downsizing of the metaphorical mountain that people of color have to climb, highlighted by Langston Hughes in his essay, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, in order to be more successful and considered important to the literary canon and pop culture.

Through this experience and my exposure to diversified art of minorities was I able to see an underlying problem of racism when it comes to the literary canon and the success of the African American artist as well as a way to cope with my rude awakening by my freshman English TA but also see it stretch further into societal “norms” that have racist tendencies.

White pop culture still dominates cultural appropriation and the source of this is the school system.

However much like a black widow the cure is through the problem, that if we fix the education system and have classes that provide more exposure to more than just white literature, histories, and concepts in earlier development, we can form better and well-informed people for the future and avoid the unintentional ignorance we have been raised under by way of the gaze of the ever-so-present white lens.