Meaning, we have used our economic strength and our ownership in the media to impose our ideals and institutions on the world at large.
We have managed to create a single-story for nearly every other part of the world—especially for parts of the developing world. These single stories have enabled us to propagate oversimplified stereotypes, like the “Arab terrorist” and the “war-torn African.”
Yet, “the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but they are incomplete.” Chimamanda Adichie says. “They make one story become the only story.”
By disseminating these single stories across the globe, we have enabled ourselves to interact with “others” through a lens of dominance—one that ensures we never lose the upper-hand. Meanwhile, we have also made sure that our story—the American story—gets told quite differently. In fact, our story is woven from an entirely unique tapestry—one that is rich, colorful, dynamic, and multifaceted—one that is unlike any other. By capitalizing on the media’s one-way flow of information, we have managed to keep our top-down approach to power and dominance firmly intact. Alas, this is hegemony. This is America.
I really didn’t start seriously considering the issue of power until we had our first Skype call with Sara and the members of the Green Space English Club. It was during this call that Josh and I quickly realized Sara and her peers knew quite a lot about American culture—comparatively, much more than we new about Sudan. And much like our students in Vietnam, Sara and the Green Space members said they had learned a lot about America through Hollywood films, American television shows, and U.S. news sites.