American and Black Population
After watching the video, one thing that stood out to me is how deeply rooted hegemony is in today’s world. Hegemony is a concept originating from the work of Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci. It refers to the dominance or leadership of one group over others, achieved through force as well as through the manipulation of consent and beliefs (de Orellana 2). It involves the ability of a ruling class or group to maintain its power by shaping the worldview, values, norms, and institutions of society in ways that benefit its interests while also gaining the consent of subordinate groups. Due to hegemony, white people are seen as the embodiment of humanity, and everyone else should emulate their language, mannerisms, lifestyle, and basically everything else about them in order to be considered as good.
An example is the woman who narrates how when she was young, she once spoke in a British accent just so she could feel good enough ( “BLACK | How You See Me,” 00:00:54 – 00:01:03). A second example is the man who tells an experience where he met a white man who was surprised that he was an excellent photographer, especially as a black person. This meant that the white man did not expect black people to be as good as white people. The third example is the woman who says that she was told she would be prettier if she was white. Based on how society has been designed for centuries, minority groups are made to feel inferior; white majority groups are made to feel superior by society.
Suppose I am a community leader, to address the effects of hegemony in my community, I would aim to educate myself and my community so that we can understand the historical and structural factors that contribute to hegemony and its impact on our society. Further, by educating ourselves on hegemony, we start to notice how it is spread. A perfect example of this is in pop culture, especially movies, whereby anything different, for instance, Native American spiritual connection with nature or how an ethnic community dresses, is made fun of or made to appear strange.
Works Cited
“BLACK | How You See Me” YouTube, uploaded by Participant, 8 November 2016, https://youtu.be/FO6DADHDPQw?si=DbNJVkJuh6fc1VxM
de Orellana, Juan Carlos. “Gramsci on Hegemony.” TSW, 26 May 2015, repositories.lib.utexas.edu/items/969cbade-453d-4d2c-972c-b1be170ff2d7.
ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE
We’ll write everything from scratch
Question 
After watching the videos in this week’s module, what stood out the most?
American and Black Population
Pretend you are a community leader, how would you address the identified issue that stood out to you the most?