During Professor Cook’s lectures, I found myself most interested in the topic of white male bias in the art world and how it continues to create exclusion for other artists of color and gender. While various historic art pieces feature the presence of black individuals in family portraits, these individuals are “whitewashed”, covered over, and hidden, in the background. Due to the presentation of the paintings in this manner, black individuals are dismissed and the viewer’s main focus remains on the, most likely, white individuals in the artwork. At the same time, Titus Kaphar utilizes a technique called “whitewashing” to symbolize the erasure and silencing of the black community. I thought it was interesting how the metaphorical and Kaphar’s literal interpretation of the word “whitewash” are complete opposites of each other. While one connotation hides black individuals and their history, the other shifts the focus to reinforce how this is a recurring issue in the modern world.