Black proletarians developed a psychic identity independent of bourgeois ideology.

Evidence

Wright believed that racism, the very character of the system by which Black workers had been exploited, had mediated their internalization of the ruling ideas of American society. He went on to assert that, unlike the dominant sectors of European and Euro-American proletariats, the Black proletariat—historically from the legal and political disciplines of slavery to its peculiar condition as free wage labor—had developed a psychic and cultural identity independent from bourgeois ideology. This construction of Wright’s pushed the insights of Du Bois61 and others far beyond the critique of Black-white labor solidarity. What Wright was suggesting went even beyond the most extreme position in the 1930s of American radicals that Blacks were the vanguard of the American working class. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1392

Categorization

• XREF: This is the core Robinson thesis across the book — Black radicalism has an autonomous history distinct from European Marxism — now located in Wright’s 1930s thought. Connects to earlier chapters on how slavery conditioned Black consciousness. — connects to: Black party members’ dogmatism shielded them from psychological destruction; Black revolutionary consciousness formed independently of bourgeois thought and ideology; Black radicalism is a distinct tradition, not a Black variant of Western radicalism (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that oppression-shaped identity shielded Black workers from bourgeois ideological incorporation — while white workers internalized it — is a dense, paradigm-level assertion about how racial capitalism differentially forms class consciousness. It grounds the whole Black Marxist critique of orthodox class theory.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1392

Broader Connections

• Black revolutionary consciousness formed independently of bourgeois thought and ideology #corroborates (0.90)
• Black radicalism is a distinct tradition, not a Black variant of Western radicalism #expands (0.70)
• Black radicalism is an autonomous African response, not a Black variant of Western radicalism #expands (0.70) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 395