This is definitely a feature of presumed (self) guilt, complex feelings, projections. There is a certain amount of self-involvement and typically not a great deal of self-awareness combined with non-existent objective analysis.
Like… let’s jump ship to another subject. Whenever I have discussions or speak about my disagreement (to put it mildly) on the use of corporal punishment of children, the people that disagree come out of the woodwork to be VERY defensive, angry, ugly as if I had spoken to them specifically. As if I had said “hey YOU, yeah specifically you there, you are a bad person and I condemn you"
If I talk even solely about my own experiences, people are still angry and defensive. If I am gentle and kind and give more leeway than what I in fact feel, people are still defensive. If I don’t say anything and they know I don’t utilize their (barbaric) methods with my own child, it is STILL seen as condemnation. And I have been…or rather I was (my child is 20 now) approached in very hostile ways as if I had accused them. My *existence* was an accusation.
I suppose I am trying to say yes yes your take on this is accurate. Someone is taking something that doesn’t not have to be assumed about them or have to do with them and is responding as if it is and this mechanism indeed suggests the existence of either guilt or anger, maybe a child-like sense of self-centering. I tried having a discussion one day with my mother about BLM. So me I am a big supporter of this movement and it is something I am passionate about — something I originally in part learned from her because when I was a child she was outspokenly anti-racist or so it seemed to my child self . I don’t know to wait degree she has been poisoned by her husband and his incessant insane downfall into the bowels of FOX news and word radio and ever more crazy town rightist propaganda and conspiracy. Or if she has been too long away from diverse friends. Or what it is. Bit here I am arguing with her about this “all lives matter” bullshit she is spewing….
And I just keep thinking “why?” — why do people react like this. If someone said “we have to fight X kind of cancer" people would not jump in to say “ALL CANCER MATTERS" and if we plug almost anything into this, it is the same deal. No one would make the assumption that you were saying other problems didn’t exist. And all I can conclude is that people like — now unfortunately my mother — and other white folks are *hearing* “black lives matter more” for a series of what I think are largely unconscious reasons but problematic nevertheless. They are racist or supremacist on an unconscious or subconscious level in the sense that “when you’re accustomed to privelege, equality feels like oppression" and I see this same problem play out across all fields of efforts at equalizing. To become equal is to make the oppressor feel oppressed, totally absurd and totally human and also underdeveloped as minds go. Suddenly they feel as if you are saying that they are inferior, because they’ve been on top so long. And honestly I am not immune from having felt the tingle of this sensation in my life. My response is to see it for what it is and change my thought pattern. And I feel fortunate that I can do that. A part of me looks at my mother or people like her and I think how unfortunate for them. But it doesn’t matter because the harm they are collectively causing can’t go unremarked or unnoticed.
Oh and I think it is worth noting that the perception of “leftists”…what was it? jumping in to tell (presumably white folks or rightists) how to be or behave or that they are racist…
..is a continuation or rather a predecessor of the same projection. If the person hears an accusation where there is none, then any time they hear people talk about racism, they hear it as accusation and personal condemnation. So this narrative is unreliable. I often want to ask “are you sure that is what happened?” “did the soi-disant leftists REALLY jump down your throat?”
Ok, I will say there are some folks — and I don’t believe leftist has anything to really do with it — that can be aggressively call out-y in a truly useless or toxic manner, but I think those moments are notable and exceptions and rare.
Anyway I love reading what you have to say. Sorry if all of this is a bit rambling ^^😊 hopefully it is either useful or showing of sympathy or comisseration.
