Orientalism, It Is Real

In his article "The Postcolonial Mind – God of Small Things," Amardeep Singh uses ideas proposed by Edward Said about the pattern and roots of Orientalism to make the argument that although actual colonialism is a thing of the past, colonialism is still with us as a society. He suggests that this is true because both the ruler and the ruled to some extent share an experience that is not easy to separate. Although Singh is initially talking about Orientalism, what he describes is similar in many ways to the issues that surround the topic of race in the United States. Like Orientalism, the practice of slavery in the United States used a system of power and dominance to create an “us” versus “them” system between slave owners and slaves. When talking about Orientalism, Singh concludes that there is no simple way to achieve true decolonization and this also seems to apply to slavery. Like colonization, although slavery is a thing of the past in the United States, the history of slavery, including the imagery and vocabulary surrounding it, still continues to exist in the post-slavery world. Racial issues are more recognizable today and have even been publicly addressed there is still and embedded undertone that can be felt in our everyday world.