I don't know if it has something to do with the constant and unhealthy emphasis on individualism in modern society.
Individualism is emphasised, but in fact it hardly exists. The individual has not been a sovereign human being for a long time, since efforts to make him fit for the collective have been going on for centuries, if not millennia. The individual is an invention from advertising. Here, the individual is exalted as a happy consumer and all paths are open to him if he only buys this or that product or service.
The racism you speak of is an expression of what all people suffer and feel as individuals because they are in the boat with those they perceive as victims of racist currents. Individuals are only allowed to feel good when they contribute to the common good. People lash out at each other when they think they see that someone is not serving the common good. For example, because he is unemployed or lazy in his work. Yet all the unemployed, and especially the poor, contribute to the common good of the better off, because they are given their justification and meaning by starting aid programmes for these poor and unemployed. By their very nature, these aid programmes cannot be reduced to the concept of racism, because they actually include all people who do not belong to the elite, who " meritlessly" take advantage of those they set out to help. The programme is everything, the individual nothing.
the law is the same for everyone, and everyone has to play by the same rules. That's true, but...
I see that you doubt the truth of this statement later on. Because it is not true that the law is the same for everyone, and that everyone has to play by the same rules. Someone who does not acknowledge a law and therefore acts against it is punished and comes to court if he does not belong to the elite. Someone who does not accept a law and acts against it will not be punished and will not come to court if he belongs to the elite.
From a psychological point of view, the powerful punishes the powerless for his powerlessness. The individual, who has been brought up to be powerless through structural violence, has to pay the price for the wrong upbringing on top of that and serves as a whipping boy and for the crime statistics. As with viruses, one could use the statement here: "The virus is nothing, the environment is everything."
Average people are threatened with so many fines and punishments, it's overwhelming. To stand up against the legislative and disregard what is called "law" takes courage and back bones.