The Exotification of Oriental chicken

We, the people of the Chinese-Indian-Jewish alliance (and perhaps some mix thereof) write this Wespeak to call out an egregious oversight on the part of one of our fine dining establishments. If one enters WesWings, this individual will discover a menu item on the wall that irks the soul of any racially/politically/socially conscious Wesleyan student. In response to the recent Wespeak written by an alumnus, accusing that Wespeaks do not contain enough serious material, allow us to quote Ali G, “’Ear me now!” The labels such as “Oriental ginger” chicken or “Oriental ginger” sauce are simply backwards, and years behind the purported awareness of “Diversity University.” Fighting Orientalism is a daily job as we are constantly bombarded with an essentializing and otherizing of Eastern cultures as part of the imperialist project of the white-male-European gaze. According to Anwar Abdel Malek in “Orientalism”:

“a) On the level of the position of the problem, and the problematic…the Orient and Orientals [are considered by Orientalism] as an ‘object’ of study, stamped with an otherness––as all that is different, whether it be ‘subject’ or ‘object’—but of a constitutive otherness, of an essentialist character…

”b) On the level of the thematic [the Orientalist] adopts an essentialist conception of the countries, nations and peoples of the Orient under study, a conception which expresses itself through a characterized ethnist typology…and will soon proceed with it towards racism.“ (Said, 97)

We invoke Said’s understanding of power relations in our quest to change the dominant discourse at Wesleyan and Weswings. The idea that thousands of years of Eastern­—even the word eastern is oblivious and violent in its smoothing over of difference—culture can be reduced to a sauce is hurtful albeit tasty. Any institution that teaches post-colonial theory (such as Said) and wants to take itself seriously should not give in to such oversight; we are losing credibility. Furthermore, Weswings presents the sandwich as exotic and mysterious.

In light of our wespeak, we propose that the word Oriental be dropped from the Weswings menu; items such as Oriental Ginger Chicken would be easily recognized as ”Honey Ginger Chicken“ or ”Ginger Chicken.“ The people have spoken!