The oppressed class has only a negative self-definition, which is why oppression must end

Evidence

It is no accident if Marx defined the attitude of the proletariat not positively but negatively: he does not show it as affirming itself or as seeking to realize a classless society, but rather as first attempting to put an end to itself as a class. And it is precisely because it has no other issue than a negative one that this situation must be eliminated. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 87

Categorization

• XREF: Negativity as the hallmark of oppressed or bad-faith consciousness connects to chapter 1’s treatment of the nihilist and of ‘fleeing’ rather than living. — connects to: An oppressed class becomes a We-subject only by objectifying its oppressors as Them. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1031