Who are we to judge?

What? Before reading Said’s excerpt about orientalism I thought the term oriental was a label put on people from Asia. It was brand new information to me that the term oriental meant something completely different to Europeans. To Europeans Orientals are middle easterners. Like every other aspect that relates to a person’s culture, Orientalism has multiple meanings. Said gave three meanings of Orientalism. His first definition is the one Said sees as most accepted which “… is an academic one… Anyone who teaches, writes about or researches the Orient… is an Orientalist, and what he or she does is Orientalism” (Said 2). Said mentions that specialists prefer to not use this term, because it is too vague and general, as well as the negative history behind the term. It relates to when Europe colonized the middle east. The second definition of Orientalism is that “… it is a style of thought based upon and ontological and epistemological distinction made between the ‘the Orient’ and ‘the Occident’” (Said 2). This definition fails to recognize the difference Eastern and Western Orientals. This has allowed professors, writers, etc. to go ahead and create their own version of the Oriental world based on what they experienced. The third definition is the definition that derived from the Colonization of the middle east by Europe. This is the definition that created discourse for people from the middle east, because they were an oppressed people that Europeans took advantage and thought very little of. They also did not understand much about these people so. All they knew were the stories written about them, which allowed to create stereotypes about middle easterners.

So what? Huntington differs from Said in that he believes that the “…world is a world of seven or eight major civilizations” (Huntington). By saying this Huntingtin is generalizing groups of people by saying they can only belong to one of the major civilizations. Said on the other hand believes that the cultures are a matter of interpretation. In the video on Said, he recalls the reason he decided to write his book on Orientalism. He saw that the world had the wrong idea about his culture and he wanted to tell people the truth. The critique that can be applied to Huntington’s concept is that ethnographic research essentializes cultures. By saying that there are only seven to eight major civilizations he is ignoring the difference between cultures and bounding them to one group of people.

Now what? In Hollywood, a discourse about homeless people that is often portrayed is that homeless people are good for nothing low-lives. They are dirty, scary, and uncivilized. People put the blame on them for being in the situation that they’re in when in truth it may not be their fault. In the movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Kevin (the main character) runs into this homeless woman that he is instantly afraid of. Later on in the movie Kevin finds out that the homeless is quite caring and kind. He apologizes for judging her so quickly and appreciates the bond they share. This kind of discourse is what allows the homeless population to thrive. When I first moved here, a family friend told my mom that San Rafael was one of the only places in Marin County that did not tell their homeless population to move on to another city. And the only reason she told my mom that was to tell me to be careful. She had assumed that just because there was a homeless population that I would somehow be in danger. In the short amount of time that I had spent at Ritter House I have come to find that these stereotypes and discourses have no true basis whatsoever. The people that I have met are kind and sometimes very timid. They act like they don’t want to be seen or heard. They have posed no threat to me, and I do not find them to be dirty, scary or lazy. Ritter House is trying to help these people get out of that discourse, by providing them with services such as showers or finding them housing. It human flaw that we judge and make assumptions so quickly. To understand a person we must get to know that person and connect personally. We can’t always go based off what others say, because we are not a people running on one mind.