The racialized other’s traits oppose an industrial capitalist work ethic

Evidence

Makdisi shows that through the course of the nineteenth century, a clearly polarized notion of what constituted the “normative self” was constructed in opposition to the “degenerate other.” While the normative self was “productive, modern, sober, unadorned, disciplined, rational, frank, fair-minded, moderate, regulated, democratic, hardworking, honest, natural, scientific, virtuous, manly, masculine”—virtues I would argue that fit with an industrial capitalist ethic—the other was “vain, retrograde, obsessed with appearances, irrational, unproductive, undisciplined, lazy, unnatural, licentious, capricious, deceitful, emotional, fanatical, tyrannical, violent, indulgent, voluptuous, sensual, feminine, effeminate,” and thus either a relic of a previous noncapitalist era or part of impoverished groups unsuitable as subjects of domestic capitalism. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 148

Categorization

• XREF: Directly connects to the MOC question: the polite-polarity of the racial other tracks class-based industrial-capitalist virtue, a mechanism that may generalize to European racial-racism cases beyond US empire. — connects to: Capitalism differentiated peoples into racial categories rather than homogenizing them — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 205; Racial ideology functions as a labor discipline for capital; Working-class racism resists analysis under homogeneous conceptions of ideology — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 142 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Racial ideology functions as a labor discipline for capital #expands (0.85)
• Racial stereotypes were inferred from economic disadvantage #corroborates (0.80)
• Industrial society reduces individuals to interchangeable species beings through conformist working conditions #contradicts (0.78)
• The artisan-engineer knowledge split hardened racial exclusion in colonial labor policy #exemplifies (0.75) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 739
• Industrial capital weaponized racism to fragment the labor movement #expands (0.75)
• Capitalism differentiated peoples into racial categories rather than homogenizing them #expands (0.72) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 205
• Racial consciousness supplied fictive status to white workers while excluding Blacks #expands (0.72)
• Working-class racism resists analysis under homogeneous conceptions of ideology #qualifies (0.70) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 142
• Racism has relative autonomy from other social relations #complicates (0.70)