Demanding rights is the logical conclusion rather than the opposite of respectability politics.

Evidence

The politics of respectability, while emphasizing self-help strategies and intra-group reform, provided the platform from which black church women came to demand full equality with white America. Speaking up for rights constituted not the antithesis of respectability but its logical conclusion. James Scott’s work on the politics of everyday resistance confirms the subversive role of the discourse of respectability. Scott convincingly argues that overt political protest often evolves from critiques originating within the hegemony of the dominant ideology—within the plasticity and dialogic character of ideological discourses. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1002

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core clarification of the coined concept: respectability politics is not mere assimilationist self-policing but itself the platform for demanding full rights — resistance arising within, not against, dominant ideology.
• XREF: Directly echoes the reader’s core framing of the coinage and pairs naturally with James Scott’s Weapons of the Weak theory of everyday resistance and infrapolitics. — connects to: Granting new legal rights can weaken rather than strengthen one’s position. — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 789; Liberal rights discourse has historically justified rather than opposed empire — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 72; Right is best understood as implementing subjugation rather than establishing legitimacy — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 45

Broader Connections

• Granting new legal rights can weaken rather than strengthen one’s position. #complicates (0.80) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 789
• Right is best understood as implementing subjugation rather than establishing legitimacy #complicates (0.80) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 45
• Liberal rights discourse has historically justified rather than opposed empire #complicates (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 72