This seems like one of those topics people tiptoe around and thus, they need to be educated on it.

Let me tell you what happened. I used to go to a yoga class and it was amazing. The white instructor was very organized in her regimes and was accomplished herself. She definitely knew her yoga. By the end of the hour, I had made up my mind to come back next week.

That was when she ended it by joining her hands together in a prayer position and gestured us to do the same.

I did. She uttered "Namaste." And that was when I realized that I really had to write this article because simply put, people are confused on the difference between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation.

Was the instructor just appreciating yoga as an Indian discipline? I understand why cultural appropriation can be confusing, especially when one's intention is not to offend. In many cases, students and teachers are likely not even aware of how certain words and actions can mar the religious or spiritual significance of yoga.

To be completely honest, I don't know if it was appropriation or appreciation.

Yoga is a practice based in large part on self-awareness, self-love, and freedom from material trappings. Nowadays, it is mostly depicted with stylish athletic apparel and spun toward white populations as a spiritually and physically elite activity.

I'm not saying that yoga is only for Indians, isn't for white women, or that it should never be a workout. Yoga is for everyone, no matter what you look like. But yoga is also far more than a trendy physical practice. Yet much of the marketing around yoga unfairly favors and glamorizes these components to the point that the entire practice is often misunderstood.

Not only are you missing out on part of the practice by buying into the mainstream industry’s version of yoga, you’re also only viewing yoga through a Western lens. This lens distorts what yoga is supposed to be, and adds racism, exotification, and exclusivity.

Simply put, cultural appropriation is when someone adopts something from a culture that is not his or her own — a hairstyle, a piece of clothing, a manner of speaking, even a type of exercise (yoga, for example).

Unlike a cultural exchange, in which there is a mutual interchange, appropriation refers to a particular power dynamic in which members of a dominant culture take elements from a culture of people who have been systematically oppressed by that dominant group.

There are many who claim that cultural appropriation is meaningless whining from nonwhite people. What these claims refuse to recognize is that many nonwhite cultures are still fractured or repairing themselves, facing continued prejudice in the present day.

Rejecting cultural appropriation as a problem also rejects that many communities, often nonwhite ones, have been historically oppressed, colonized, and had their cultures ransacked for profit.