Dependence on the subordinated coexisted with total denial of their humanity.

Evidence

Whites would live out their lives denying dependability while absolutely dependent. Sharing familial intimacies with those who knew them better than they knew themselves but whom they knew scarce at all. They could confess their deepest fears and secrets as though confiding in a priest to those whose humanity and certainly dignity they scant acknowledged. They could request a favor of their “boys” or “girls” in the same breath as chiding them knowingly to strangers or intimates alike as lazy or stupid or inept. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1556

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Powers the ‘On Sacrifice’ theme of intimate service by the sacrificed class — the dependency-denial inversion is a strong structural parallel to sacrificial hierarchies.
• STORYSTEM: A narrator who knows her employer better than her employer’s own family, holding secrets as survival currency — the ‘knowing those in charge better than they knew themselves’ line (1555) is a built-in fiction premise.
• XREF: connects to: Subordinates actively cooperate in their own oppression; Collective historical contact makes the self literally contain the other. — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 194; A culture of domination depends on addiction to lying and denial — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 69 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Subordinates actively cooperate in their own oppression #expands (0.82)