I think there's a term for that feeling: self-righteousness.
At one point soon after, I was walking with my brothers and female cousins and said "hey you guys...", which was a common form if addressing multiple people in Minnesota.
One if my cousins, who had probably never heard that idiom before, replied "We're not guys".
Afterwards, I switched to the common southern idiom of "y'all".
> In modern anti-racism, not only does a gotcha not need to be justified with argument,
> would get a lecture about how using the word "guys" to a mixed sex group was being oppressive.
Sounds like you received a justified argument that you are choosing to ignore.
Do you think if people consistently referred to a group of people that included you as "hey girls" you would find it....a bit strange?
I find it a interesting quirk of human behavior. It not very noticeable unless you listen for it, but once you do, it is a very noticeable during a conference with a high rate of speakers that do not share your own gender.
I think the events at those meetings are more about the joy of the gotcha than anti-racism versus non-racism. It just feels good to catch someone out, to be the one who sees it first. Like most pleasures it has addictive power.
It wasn't because the anti-racists were actually racists that they were triggered by a white man bouncing a black baby on his lap. It was because they were scanning desperately for a gotcha to feed their habit. For a target that you disagree with, a behavior has a much lower threshold to become a gotcha. If it wasn't for the baby it could have been his supercilious smile or hair style.
In modern anti-racism, not only does a gotcha not need to be justified with argument, any criticism of the gotcha is another gotcha. What I have written here is just more evidence of my own racism and sexism. They've got me.