The orientalism which lumps all those peoples and cultures together which find themselves somewhere east of the British Isles, or, any way of the 'Occident' (hmm) as though they were one is, indeed, considered racist. But the attorney was no doubt staging a nice bit of melodrama. Though you didn't ask, and it may be presumptuous, I guess you could just note it and ask the witness to choose a different word.

VC beat me to post, so I will add that my experience at graduate school was the opposite, and students from the Middle East were offended by "orientalism."