How Edward Said’s Orientalism Shone A Light On An Overlooked Racism

The 1970’s was the decade when the United States took the most strides towards true equality. There was the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and the integrating of differently-abled children into mainstream schools. 

And then, there was this book. Orientalism, by Edward Said. 

The word ‘Orientalism’ was already in common use at this point in history. It refers to how Westerners treat things from the ‘East’ everything from art to clothing to people and so on. 

It was never actually seen as a bad thing; at least, not to Westerners. 

To Easterners, however, it was another story. 

Many of this time felt ostracised, either fetishized or treated as ‘less than’.  Their art was appropriated and twisted into meanings it didn’t have or either used in the opposite way of its intention. And the people themselves were considered only ‘fit’ for certain types of jobs or roles. 

Orientalism, the book, pointed out how this fascination with The Far East was inextricably tied to the imperialist societies that created it. 

In other words, the West treated itself as default and the East as the ‘other,’, non-normal one. 

The idea rocked the cultured and academic world, faced with their own ideas of cultural appropriation and inequality for the first time. 

And slowly, things started to change. 

That’s how his book changed the world. 

How will your book change the world? 

 

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