Enslavers exploited ethnic divisions among Africans to suppress resistance and protect profits

Evidence

Linnaeus did not seem to be part of a grandiose scheme to force-feed ethnic racism to enslaved peoples to divide and conquer them. But whenever ethnic racism did set the natural allies on American plantations apart, in the manner that racism set the natural allies in American poverty apart, enslavers hardly minded. They were usually willing to deploy any tool—intellectual or otherwise—to suppress slave resistance and ensure returns on their investments. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 207

Categorization

• XREF: Reinforces the reader’s core learning: racist ideas (even intra-Black ethnic ones) serve the material/political project — here profit and slave control — rather than precede it.