Dominants invoke individualism to defend the status quo against group-based equality demands.

Evidence

Given the embedded nature of racial processes in the contemporary environment, it is unsurprising that subordinate groups may invoke difference to mystify, to deny knowledge of themselves to the dominant groups, to confuse and neutralize those who attempt to control or “help” them, or to reduce them to research objects. They may use difference to stress their own separateness, and to authorize their own representations. They may seek to legitimize their own definitions of cultural difference, including those against others from within their own collectivity. … This can lead at times, as we shall see later, to a strange convergence in the language of the racist right and of black or ethnic nationalists, as both infuse the racial or ethnic category with essentialist, and supposedly naturally inherited, characteristics. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 115 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Antibusing activists reframed opposition to desegregation as defense of individual liberty against state coercion. — Matthew D. Lassiter, The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind”…, 58; Believing in equal opportunity lets advantaged groups justify status inequality and avoid collective guilt. — Nyla R. Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (eds.), Collective Guilt: International…, 202; Dominant groups counter bias accusations by claiming a distinct liberty is threatened — Felix Danbold, Ivuoma N. Onyeador, and Miguel M. Unzueta, Dominant groups support digressive…, 8 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Individualism becomes a defense of the status quo by delegitimizing group-based demands #corroborates (0.96)
• Subordinate groups can challenge hegemony by invoking the dominant group’s own professed values #complicates (0.78)
• Subordinate groups strategically deploy difference to resist dominant control and revalue themselves #complicates (0.76) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 115