The lazy nigger stereotype justified continued exploitation of black labor

Evidence

Brereton reports: “Victorians were preoccupied with the need for ‘steady industry,’ ‘reliable labour,’ by the non-white races of the Empire—usually for a European employer. As the London Spectator said, steady industry was ‘in English opinion, the single virtue, except reverence for white faces, to be demanded of black men.’ The ‘lazy nigger’ myth performed a useful role: it justified the exploitation of black labourers by the planters, and the neglect of independent peasant cultivators by the government.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2314

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explicit ideological mechanism: how a racial slur myth does ideological work for empire and capital.
• XREF: Parallels the reader’s standing work on moral panics and class/political signaling — the racialized ‘laziness’ claim functions as a controlling narrative.