A threatened dominant group shifts from paternalistic to openly hostile stereotypes

Evidence

On the other hand, when the dominant group or sections of it perceive their superiority as legitimate, they will probably react in an intensely discriminatory fashion to any attempt by the subordinate group to change the intergroup situation. Such perhaps was the postbellum situation in the southern United States: the whites, threatened by those who had been their slaves, rapidly abandoned their paternalistic stereotypes of the blacks as “childlike” in favor of openly hostile and derogatory ones (Van der Berghe, 1967). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2757

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ article — both capture how dominant groups defending threatened status harden their ideological stance toward subordinates. — connects to: Removing a named external threat intensifies rather than softens dominant-group nationalism. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 1391; Persistent societal life problems trigger dominant groups turning against subgroups — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 78; Dominant groups that lose status develop intense resentments that fuel political conflict — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 103 (+1 more)
• SEED: Article angle: the historical pattern where paternalistic racism converts into violent racism exactly when the hierarchy is challenged — from postbellum South through settler colonial settings to modern backlash politics.