Failed community defense pushed whites toward an ideology of individuality

Evidence

For working-class whites in these neighborhoods, and in many more Atlanta neighborhoods like them, the campaign for “community integrity” had accomplished none of its goals. Indeed, if the movement had any lasting legacy, it was the fact that whites in these neighborhoods only came to believe in the importance and, indeed, the existence of their supposed “communities” precisely as those same “communities” crumbled around them. In every one of these white working-class neighborhoods, these Atlantans learned that their fellow whites couldn’t be trusted to stand by them, whether it be the whites on the next street or the whites in the next neighborhood. Believing that “community” was meaningless when it mattered most, they moved toward a new ideology that was its antithesis—individuality. As the course of desegregation spread from their neighborhoods to their neighborhood institutions, the trend toward isolation and individualization would only increase. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 240

Categorization

• XREF: Core to the thesis that color-blind conservatism was born from betrayed white community solidarity; connects to subsequent chapters on individualist suburban politics. — connects to: Whites anchored neighborhood defense to public amenities like parks and schools — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 165; Residential desegregation fractured white working-class solidarity into defensive individualism — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 191; White homeowners performed community solidarity as a defensive strategy against desegregation — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 190 (+2 more)
• SEED: Potential article angle: how defeated collective action (here, neighborhood defense) converts into a privatized, individualist political ideology. Worth a longer essay tracing this mechanism.

Broader Connections

• Modern conservatism abandoned explicit white supremacy for color-blind individualism #expands (0.74) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 299
• Segregationist neighborhood defense was rhetorically recast as apolitical community preservation with race unspoken #qualifies (0.72) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 194