Orientalism and Whiteness - Edward Said and bell hooks
Social and Cultural Theory
Identity, Representation and White Supremacy
By Oscar Medina
Political struggles surrounding race, gender and class differences have constructed identity. Identity is defined by what one is not. For example, I identify myself by what I am not. I am a brown, tall male and not white, short or female. Identity is socially and culturally constructed. Chris Barker in Cultural Studies (2003) says that identity is concerned with sameness and differences with the personal and the social as understood through forms of representation. The issue with identity(ies) is that some identities are represented as superior at the expense of subordinating other identities. This paper focuses on the work(s) of black feminist critic bell hooks and post-colonial theorist Edward Said with the aim to summarizing their work and contribution to our understanding of identity and white supremacy. I first summarize, react and compare their work and how they contribute to our understanding of the construction of racial identities.
Whiteness
In Richard Dyer’s book White (1997) there is an attempt to study whiteness with an interest in dislodging it from its position of power (pg.2). Dyer notes that studying whiteness is about making whiteness strange rather than treating it as a taken for granted touchstone on human ordinariness. Dyer states that whiteness is commonly equated with normality. This normality is what renders whiteness invisible by making one assume that it does not require attention. Nonetheless, the notion of whiteness as being invisible reinforces the power of whiteness in a racial hierarchy. Whiteness stays invisible in the hierarchy while blackness is vividly made visible to all people. I argue that because blackness is made visible, we must also make whiteness explicitly visible! Trying to make blackness “invisible,” holds harmful repercussions for black folks. A color-blind society, which most white people seem to believe firmly in because it works toward their interest, hurts people of color. For example, if we examine the colored population locked up in the prison industrial complex and compare it to the population attending universities, one can see how a particular population is benefiting at the expense of subordinating another population. To not see blackness or whiteness is absurd! Black and brown males are disproportionately convicted of crimes at higher rates compared to white males.
bell hooks
bell hooks, a black feminist cultural critic writes on how blacks perceive representations of whiteness in an essay titled “Representations of Whiteness in the Black Imagination.” hooks articulates this notion of whiteness and its so-called invisibility in the following sentence:
Since most white people do not have to ‘see’ black people…and [white people] do not need to be ever on guard nor to observe black people to be safe, [white people] can live as though black people are invisible, and they can imagine that they are also invisible to blacks (pg.42)
Here hooks notes that white people believe that there is no representation of whiteness in the black imagination. In fact, hooks suggests that white people think black people see them only as they want to appear—invisible and superior. Critically approaching whiteness, hooks states that black people have remain rather silent about their representations of whiteness in the black imagination but are fully conscious of whiteness. However, hooks also states that black people do not know themselves separate from whiteness. In other words, she argues that blacks do not know how to identify outside of the realm of whiteness. The construction of whiteness, hooks posits, came about through hegemonic operations such as imperialism and colonialism, processes that coerced black folks to internalize negative perceptions of blackness. hooks notes that during slavery (and still today) white slave masters controlled the black gaze, which resulted in controlled perception, allowing the rendering of representation of blackness and whiteness (pg.41).
Hooks is concerned with the representations of white stereotypes in the black imagination. She critically and creatively guides us through a black lens on the representations of whiteness in a historical context that is not reactionary to white stereotypes.
"… I want to focus on that representation of whiteness that is not formed in reaction to stereotypes but emerges as a response to the traumatic pain and aguish that remains a consequence of white racist domination, a psychic state that informs and shapes the way black folks ‘see’ whiteness" (pg. 43, hooks)
The representation of whiteness in the black imagination, hooks claims, is one that is terrorizing (pg.43). hooks says that one fantasy of whiteness is that the threatening “Other” (black people) is always represented as the terrorist. This perception enables many white people to imagine there is no representation of whiteness as terror, or terrorizing (pg.49). In her discussion on whiteness and its stereotypes, hooks discusses these representations in an historical context of white hegemony. Historically, hooks argues that blacks have associated terror with whiteness. hooks concludes her discussion about the representation of whiteness in the black imagination by stating that, in contemporary society, white and black people alike believe that racism no longer exists. This erasure, according to hooks, is mythic and diffuses the representation of whiteness as terror in the black consciousness.
Edward Said & Orientalism
Working off Michel Foucault’s concept of discourse, Edward Said’s post-colonial work primarily focuses on the discourse of European racist views of the Islamic and Arab world. Barker writes that “racism is a matter of patterns of cultural representation deeply ingrained within the practices, discourses and subjectivities of western societies” (pg. 266). In his work Orientalism, (1971) Said argues that cultural-geographical entities are historically specific discursive constructions that have particular history and tradition. To Said, Orientalism is a set of Western (Occidental) discourses of power that have constructed an “Orient.” In other words, the Orient, has been Orientalized, made known, in ways that depend on and reproduce the positional superiority and hegemony of the west.
For Said, Orientalism is a general group of ideas impregnated with European superiority, racism, and imperialism that are elaborated and distributed through a variety of texts and practices. Therefore, Said notes that the Orient has been constituted by an imagery and vocabulary that have given the Orient a particular kind of reality and presence with the west. Thus, Orientalism is essentially a western and mythologized perception of the Orient. Said argues this extensively using literary text such as Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, where “Maometto” or Mohammed is represented as an imposter.
What [Western] discourse considers to be a fact – that Mohammed is an imposter…is a component of the discourse, a statement the discourse compels one to make whenever the name Mohammed occurs or [is mentioned] (pg. 33)
Said notes that Mohammed is represented as an imposter through western discourse. Said argues that western discourse presents an inaccurate depiction of Mohammed. Because Mohammed is of the “Orient,” the Orient or anyone of the Orient becomes recognized by Europe as imposters, fraudulent and deceitful beings. Said argues further that its not even so much the language being used to describe the Orient, “but because [the language used to describe the Orient] is not even trying to be accurate” (pg.34). In other words, there is not even an intent from Europe to understand and represent the “Orient” accurately.
Also through literary text, Said examines how in William Shakespare’s Othello, the Orient and Islam are always represented as outsiders despite being inside of Europe. Europe and its discursive practices in constructing the Orient use a particular set of language to inaccurately represent and make sense of the Orient, rendering an imaginative geography of the Orient. I believe this practice of Orientalism continues through western media outlets. The media has a set of practices to convey a story of the Orient. These practices include language, pictures and video. But these practices are not trying to depict the Orient accurately. Western media serves to inform and reinforce its superiority among its constituents in the west.
The “Orient” has been misrepresented through western discourse. As a consequence, identities are given a set of ascribed meaning. For example, the Orient is seen as an exotic, mysterious place where woman are subservient to men. But these constructed identities serve the dominant western narrative because they produce a set of western knowledge of the Orient.
Our initial description of Orientalism as a learned field now acquires a new concreteness. A field is often an enclosed space. The idea of representation is a theatrical one: the Orient is on the stage on which the whole East is confined. On the stage will appear figures whose role it is to represent the larger whole from which they emanate. The Orient then seems to be, not an unlimited extension beyond the familiar European world, but rather a closed filed, a theatrical state affixed to Europe. (pg. 27). Here, Said argues that the field or the study of the Orient serves to please Europe and its domination. Representations of the Orient have been made by Europe for Europe. Said also suggests that the Orient has an “affixed” relationship with the west, however, a relationship that only serves the west to firmly hold its superiority.
Both hooks and Said are concerned with the construction of representation and identity. For Said a fictitious identity of Orientalism results due to an imagined geography imposed on the Orient by a white supremacist discourse coming from the west. Hooks, on the other hand, focuses on black representations of whiteness, and how whiteness is pervasively made into a false universal identity. Both authors contribute to our understanding of how identity and representation get constructed. They critically examine the processes that create the “Other” and how the Other is used to reinforce and sustain white and western hegemony. How can we move towards dismantling western hegemony and whiteness? How can our understanding of identity and imagined geographies push toward a world where there is no superior identity or superior geographical region?
References
hooks, bell (1998). “Representations of Whiteness in the Black Imagination.” Black on White: Black Writers on What it Means to Be White. New York: Schocken Books. pg. 38-53.
Barker, Chris (2003). Cultural Studies Theory and Practice. 2nd Editition. Thousand Oaks. Sage Publication.
Dyer, Richard (1997). White. New York. Routledge Press.
Said, Edward (1978). “Imaginative Geography and Its Represenations: Orientalizing the Oriental.” In Race Critical Theories, D Goldbert and P. Essed, eds. Oxford: Blackwell: 15-37
Identity, Representation and White Supremacy
By Oscar Medina
Political struggles surrounding race, gender and class differences have constructed identity. Identity is defined by what one is not. For example, I identify myself by what I am not. I am a brown, tall male and not white, short or female. Identity is socially and culturally constructed. Chris Barker in Cultural Studies (2003) says that identity is concerned with sameness and differences with the personal and the social as understood through forms of representation. The issue with identity(ies) is that some identities are represented as superior at the expense of subordinating other identities. This paper focuses on the work(s) of black feminist critic bell hooks and post-colonial theorist Edward Said with the aim to summarizing their work and contribution to our understanding of identity and white supremacy. I first summarize, react and compare their work and how they contribute to our understanding of the construction of racial identities.
Whiteness
In Richard Dyer’s book White (1997) there is an attempt to study whiteness with an interest in dislodging it from its position of power (pg.2). Dyer notes that studying whiteness is about making whiteness strange rather than treating it as a taken for granted touchstone on human ordinariness. Dyer states that whiteness is commonly equated with normality. This normality is what renders whiteness invisible by making one assume that it does not require attention. Nonetheless, the notion of whiteness as being invisible reinforces the power of whiteness in a racial hierarchy. Whiteness stays invisible in the hierarchy while blackness is vividly made visible to all people. I argue that because blackness is made visible, we must also make whiteness explicitly visible! Trying to make blackness “invisible,” holds harmful repercussions for black folks. A color-blind society, which most white people seem to believe firmly in because it works toward their interest, hurts people of color. For example, if we examine the colored population locked up in the prison industrial complex and compare it to the population attending universities, one can see how a particular population is benefiting at the expense of subordinating another population. To not see blackness or whiteness is absurd! Black and brown males are disproportionately convicted of crimes at higher rates compared to white males.
bell hooks
bell hooks, a black feminist cultural critic writes on how blacks perceive representations of whiteness in an essay titled “Representations of Whiteness in the Black Imagination.” hooks articulates this notion of whiteness and its so-called invisibility in the following sentence:
Since most white people do not have to ‘see’ black people…and [white people] do not need to be ever on guard nor to observe black people to be safe, [white people] can live as though black people are invisible, and they can imagine that they are also invisible to blacks (pg.42)
Here hooks notes that white people believe that there is no representation of whiteness in the black imagination. In fact, hooks suggests that white people think black people see them only as they want to appear—invisible and superior. Critically approaching whiteness, hooks states that black people have remain rather silent about their representations of whiteness in the black imagination but are fully conscious of whiteness. However, hooks also states that black people do not know themselves separate from whiteness. In other words, she argues that blacks do not know how to identify outside of the realm of whiteness. The construction of whiteness, hooks posits, came about through hegemonic operations such as imperialism and colonialism, processes that coerced black folks to internalize negative perceptions of blackness. hooks notes that during slavery (and still today) white slave masters controlled the black gaze, which resulted in controlled perception, allowing the rendering of representation of blackness and whiteness (pg.41).
Hooks is concerned with the representations of white stereotypes in the black imagination. She critically and creatively guides us through a black lens on the representations of whiteness in a historical context that is not reactionary to white stereotypes.
"… I want to focus on that representation of whiteness that is not formed in reaction to stereotypes but emerges as a response to the traumatic pain and aguish that remains a consequence of white racist domination, a psychic state that informs and shapes the way black folks ‘see’ whiteness" (pg. 43, hooks)
The representation of whiteness in the black imagination, hooks claims, is one that is terrorizing (pg.43). hooks says that one fantasy of whiteness is that the threatening “Other” (black people) is always represented as the terrorist. This perception enables many white people to imagine there is no representation of whiteness as terror, or terrorizing (pg.49). In her discussion on whiteness and its stereotypes, hooks discusses these representations in an historical context of white hegemony. Historically, hooks argues that blacks have associated terror with whiteness. hooks concludes her discussion about the representation of whiteness in the black imagination by stating that, in contemporary society, white and black people alike believe that racism no longer exists. This erasure, according to hooks, is mythic and diffuses the representation of whiteness as terror in the black consciousness.
Edward Said & Orientalism
Working off Michel Foucault’s concept of discourse, Edward Said’s post-colonial work primarily focuses on the discourse of European racist views of the Islamic and Arab world. Barker writes that “racism is a matter of patterns of cultural representation deeply ingrained within the practices, discourses and subjectivities of western societies” (pg. 266). In his work Orientalism, (1971) Said argues that cultural-geographical entities are historically specific discursive constructions that have particular history and tradition. To Said, Orientalism is a set of Western (Occidental) discourses of power that have constructed an “Orient.” In other words, the Orient, has been Orientalized, made known, in ways that depend on and reproduce the positional superiority and hegemony of the west.
For Said, Orientalism is a general group of ideas impregnated with European superiority, racism, and imperialism that are elaborated and distributed through a variety of texts and practices. Therefore, Said notes that the Orient has been constituted by an imagery and vocabulary that have given the Orient a particular kind of reality and presence with the west. Thus, Orientalism is essentially a western and mythologized perception of the Orient. Said argues this extensively using literary text such as Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, where “Maometto” or Mohammed is represented as an imposter.
What [Western] discourse considers to be a fact – that Mohammed is an imposter…is a component of the discourse, a statement the discourse compels one to make whenever the name Mohammed occurs or [is mentioned] (pg. 33)
Said notes that Mohammed is represented as an imposter through western discourse. Said argues that western discourse presents an inaccurate depiction of Mohammed. Because Mohammed is of the “Orient,” the Orient or anyone of the Orient becomes recognized by Europe as imposters, fraudulent and deceitful beings. Said argues further that its not even so much the language being used to describe the Orient, “but because [the language used to describe the Orient] is not even trying to be accurate” (pg.34). In other words, there is not even an intent from Europe to understand and represent the “Orient” accurately.
Also through literary text, Said examines how in William Shakespare’s Othello, the Orient and Islam are always represented as outsiders despite being inside of Europe. Europe and its discursive practices in constructing the Orient use a particular set of language to inaccurately represent and make sense of the Orient, rendering an imaginative geography of the Orient. I believe this practice of Orientalism continues through western media outlets. The media has a set of practices to convey a story of the Orient. These practices include language, pictures and video. But these practices are not trying to depict the Orient accurately. Western media serves to inform and reinforce its superiority among its constituents in the west.
The “Orient” has been misrepresented through western discourse. As a consequence, identities are given a set of ascribed meaning. For example, the Orient is seen as an exotic, mysterious place where woman are subservient to men. But these constructed identities serve the dominant western narrative because they produce a set of western knowledge of the Orient.
Our initial description of Orientalism as a learned field now acquires a new concreteness. A field is often an enclosed space. The idea of representation is a theatrical one: the Orient is on the stage on which the whole East is confined. On the stage will appear figures whose role it is to represent the larger whole from which they emanate. The Orient then seems to be, not an unlimited extension beyond the familiar European world, but rather a closed filed, a theatrical state affixed to Europe. (pg. 27). Here, Said argues that the field or the study of the Orient serves to please Europe and its domination. Representations of the Orient have been made by Europe for Europe. Said also suggests that the Orient has an “affixed” relationship with the west, however, a relationship that only serves the west to firmly hold its superiority.
Both hooks and Said are concerned with the construction of representation and identity. For Said a fictitious identity of Orientalism results due to an imagined geography imposed on the Orient by a white supremacist discourse coming from the west. Hooks, on the other hand, focuses on black representations of whiteness, and how whiteness is pervasively made into a false universal identity. Both authors contribute to our understanding of how identity and representation get constructed. They critically examine the processes that create the “Other” and how the Other is used to reinforce and sustain white and western hegemony. How can we move towards dismantling western hegemony and whiteness? How can our understanding of identity and imagined geographies push toward a world where there is no superior identity or superior geographical region?
References
hooks, bell (1998). “Representations of Whiteness in the Black Imagination.” Black on White: Black Writers on What it Means to Be White. New York: Schocken Books. pg. 38-53.
Barker, Chris (2003). Cultural Studies Theory and Practice. 2nd Editition. Thousand Oaks. Sage Publication.
Dyer, Richard (1997). White. New York. Routledge Press.
Said, Edward (1978). “Imaginative Geography and Its Represenations: Orientalizing the Oriental.” In Race Critical Theories, D Goldbert and P. Essed, eds. Oxford: Blackwell: 15-37
posted by Oscar at 3:16 AM
1 Comments:
Thank you for sharing your perspectives. In preparing to revisit some of Bell Hooks works, this helps to warm me up.
xoxo,
Cy
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