Consenting to Coercion: To Experience the Hegemonic Construction of Race in the United States
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My research focused on the reification and maintenance of the concept of race in the United States, through the application of Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony. This research also attempted to demonstrate how cultural hegemony constructed an agreement among all classes and social groups through coercion and cooperation to ensure repression. Furthermore, my analysis was supplemented by phenomenological accounts of those who have experienced racial inequality in the United States, to explain the impact of race not only as a concept, but as a constructed reality.
This project is a testament of my formal philosophical education that I have received from St. Lawrence University over this last four years, as it incorporated many of the philosophical ideas and frameworks I've learned over the years. It synthesized an approach to dialectical materialism and phenomenology, as well as my academic interests in history, especially the history of the marginalized people in the United States.