Free biracial elites historically distanced themselves from enslaved Black people.

Evidence

But this proposal “frees the slave and ignores the negro,” Phillips snapped. The sizable free biracial community of New Orleans snapped, too, demanding voting rights. These biracial activists separated “their struggle from that of the Negroes,” said an observer. “In their eyes, they were nearer to the white man; they were more advanced than the slave in all respects.” — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 604

Categorization

• XREF: The New Orleans biracial elite’s self-distancing is a textbook assimilationist stance — free people of color seeking proximity to whiteness at the expense of the enslaved. Directly placeable in the reader’s three-way scheme. — connects to: Black elite status depended on the welfare of the whole black population; Class-privileged blacks could themselves face exclusion from the respectability project.