Racial ideology in America concealed class divisions among whites

Evidence

The hard edges of class divisions, rooted in the European socioeconomic traditions of English gentry and continental European aristocracies and their lower classes, were softened and obscured by a mythical racial unity. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 409

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes W.E.B. Du Bois’s ‘public and psychological wage of whiteness’ thesis — the same social function of race-explaining-class. — connects to: Racial ideology actively constitutes labor regimes rather than merely justifying them — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1448; Contemporary right-wing politics elevate performativity and white supremacy in schools — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 922; The white race is defined by skin privilege shared across class lines (+4 more)
• ADDENDUM: Connects to my essay on sumptuary law and moral panics — racial unity here functions like sumptuary class-signaling as a mechanism of social ordering.