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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (34003)	7/9/2002 11:39:38 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Said does not say that white scholars must observe certain disciples, and be "seriously anthropological". That indeed would not be a controversial suggestion. Instead, he says [it has] stopped being fashionable or even acceptable [for white scholars] to pontificate about the Oriental's (i.e., the Muslim's, or the Indian's, or the Japanese's) "mentality." Note the use of the loaded word "pontificate" and the scare quotes around "mentality". This is not a passage where Said differentiates between those scholars who do it properly, on the one hand, and those who improperly "pontificate", on the other; the impropriety is strongly but implicitly linked to the race of the scholars. From this passage it is far from clear how any white scholar can write with "propriety" about any Oriental. I also note that I have never seen Said place any similar restrictions on himself when he claims to interpret the racist and colonialist "mentality" of Occidentals. Sauce for the goose does not seem to be sauce for the gander. Your interpretation has filtered out these overtones to achieve the least controversial possible reading. I think you've missed your calling -- you make a great spinmeister.