About Said’s “The Scope of Orientalism”
“Orientals were almost everywhere nearly the same” (38).
This is a very racist sentence and while I would like to say that this is an anomaly for Said, I can not. Time and time again Said makes racist comments in his writing. He does this to try and get his point across but I believe there are nicer and more effective ways to do this. Why does he feel the need to categorize Orientals and put them in the same “box”? Would he have done this if they were a different culture? Later on in the paper Said uses a quote from Cromer, “the Oriental generally acts, speaks, and thinks in a manner completely opposite to the European” (39). This makes me think. Does this mean that all Europeans are the same? Why does Said feel compelled to use this quote? Saids racist implications influence the reader in a negative way for no apparent reason.
