Racialisation and the omnipresent orient
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Edward Said’s Orientalism presents a powerful critique of how the West has historically constructed the “Orient” as an imagined, inferior Other. This fabricated identity is, of course, not neutral—rather it is deeply intertwined with power, used to justify colonial domination and intellectual authority. In the opening chapter, Said outlines the ways in which the West’s Orientalist framework enables it to project its own interpretations onto the East, reinforcing a dichotomy that privileges Western superiority. By defining the Orient as exotic, primitive, and static, the West consolidates its political and cultural hegemony.
Said's writing offers an especially useful perspective for understanding the phenomenon of Black individuals in the Jim Crow South who would adopt the guise of “Hindus” to navigate racial oppression. During this period, African Americans were subjected to the most severe forms of racial violence and degradation. However, by presenting themselves as foreign, and specifically as members of an “Eastern” race, they could sometimes avoid the harshest consequences of anti-Black racism. Although this strategy did not dismantle the racial hierarchy, it did exploit Orientalism’s romanticized view of the exotic, allowing individuals to sidestep some of the most vicious elements of Southern racism.
The success of this tactic speaks to the fundamental hollowness of racial constructions under white supremacy. African Americans were dehumanized and subjected to the most extreme forms of racial violence, while the Oriental Other was exoticized and patronized, though still racialized. Orientalism has thus provided a hierarchy of racial stereotypes, within which Black individuals could temporarily obscure their identities to gain some degree of reprieve from systemic oppression.