I think hostility is easier for people to bear than indifference. A narrative of "they kept us down" implies that you're important enough for them to give you a

I think hostility is easier for people to bear than indifference. A narrative of "they kept us down" implies that you're important enough for them to give you attention. Indifference might be especially humiliating when one's self-concept becomes wrapped up in a sense of one's own growing power. "I've been growing and growing and growing, and yet they're still not respecting me?" I think a tiger, viewing itself as powerful, would find it more humiliating to be a pet than to live in a cage.