Calling someone an Oriental functioned as a designation of racial inferiority, not neutral description

Evidence

Let me conclude this survey of Orientalism’s critical transmutations with a mention of the one group of people who were, not unexpectedly, the most exercised and vociferous in responding to my book, the Orientalists themselves. They were not my principal intended audience at all; I had in mind casting some light on their practices so as to make other humanists aware of one field’s particular procedures and genealogy. The word “Orientalism” itself has been for too long confined to a professional specialty; I tried to show was its application and existence in the general culture, in literature, ideology, and social as well as political attitudes. To speak of someone as an Oriental, as the Orientalists did, was not just to designate that person as someone whose language, geography, and history were the stuff of learned treatises: it also was often meant as a derogatory expression signifying a lesser breed of human being. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 856

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 856