Said describes Orientalism as the articulation of otherness by groups with power so that dominant parties can understand themselves by differentiation. In Said’s description, the process of differentiation is done by the dominant group. However, it seems the case that marginalized communities will often represent themselves as a deliberate binary to dominant classes. For example, in Louis Valdez’s play Zoot Suit, Chicano youth in Los Angeles in the 1940’s don a performative set of clothing in order to build a group identity directly opposed to the dominant group. There seem to be two explanations.
It is possible that Oreintalism is eventually accepted by subjugated groups, groups who agree to understand themselves only in the space of difference from dominance. In this model, even rebellious counter-cultures affirm societal stratification when they describe their identity as a difference from the dominant structure.
It is also possible that Orientalism fails to accurately describe revolution. Or, since information is most easily organized in binaries, it might be the case that a group dissastisfied with the operation of a pervasive structure might create an alternative identity in dialectical tension. Young Hegelians do this all the time. Oh you young revolutionaries with your strange music. It is therefore possible that otherness is not an affirmation of dominance, but a discursive space in which plural identities might be negotiated.
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