Du Bois saw race ideology as a rationalization that divided the exploited working classes

Evidence

In a Marxist exegesis in the concluding pages of The Negro, Du Bois viewed both American Negroes and Africans, both the white workers and the colored races, as exploited by white capital which employed the notion of race differences as a rationalization of exploitation, segregation, and subordination. And he predicted that the exploited of all races would unite and overthrow white capital, their common oppressor. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2189

Categorization

• DEFINE: Encapsulates the core Marxist-rationalization thesis central to the Black radical tradition: race as ideological cover for class exploitation.
• DEEPTHINKING: This is a paradigm-shifting claim about how race functions as ideology — dense enough that Du Bois’s own formulation repays careful sitting.
• XREF: connects to: Hayek and Röpke framed the working-class masses as uncivilized racial others — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 173