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Cultural Hegemony In America

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According to the e-study guide for Society in Focus: An Introduction to Sociology, cultural hegemony is “the domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class, who manipulate the culture of that society — the beliefs, explanations, perceptions, values, and mores — so that their ruling-class worldview becomes the worldview that is imposed and accepted as the cultural norm; as the universally valid dominant ideology that justifies the social, political, and economic status quo as natural, inevitable, perpetual and beneficial for everyone, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling class” (Cram101, 2014). In consideration of this understanding, it is clear how subjugation under such a system leads to severe and sometimes severely detrimental psychological impact. The prevalence of psychiatric disorders is greater for those under the subjugation compared to those ethnicities of the ruling class and in the United States of America, the ruling class are those who are classified as White Americans or Western European Americans.
Research bears that out regarding those classified as Latino (Ortega, Rosenheck, Alegria, & Desai, 2000). In fact according to that US Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Mental Health Services, …show more content…
As posited by Garrett and Pichette (2000) “[t]he United States has a long history of advocating policies of both extermination and assimilation of Native peoples. This historical context provides an important backdrop for understanding issues of trust/mistrust and the impact of acculturation on Native Americans who often find they have to reconcile [two] cultures.” For example, as many as 55% of First Nation children were forced from their families and moved to non-Native residences (Herring,

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