I was naive. Instead of realizing that their very way of life is under attack, and that we were the reasonable ones who were right all along, they are now setting fire to their own institutions and saying they have to be decolonized and destroyed.

I think what's happening is the usual bit: white leftists are using blacks and 'black issues' as proxies to push their own, largely self-interested ideological agendas. Jews as well, but there's no denying there are white people involved with this, and what they're tearing down aren't "their own institutions", but white institutions they are ideologically opposed to.

If anything has changed, it's that the corporations (largely controlled by ideological leftists) have forcefully gone all-in with the BLM mantra. Normally, in events like these, you can count on the GOP to give some token pushback. But the GOP is entirely servile to corporations - period. They are tremendously reluctant to take to task even the most hostile or vile left-wing corporations, because at the end of the day, corporations not only make or break political campaigns, but provide opportunities for politicians after they exit "public service", as well as for their children.

For most people, coming to a novel realization is just not possible. They need to encounter an idea somehow, hopefully in a palatable form.

Which is exactly what corporations and activists have been trying to radically reduce access to for a while now.

So no, I think your assessment is wrong. When people go to war against 'whiteness', 99 out of 100 times, 'whiteness' just so happens to be the term they use for something they hate and have always hated and would continue to do so even if there wasn't a single black in existence. Blacks are an excuse, not the real reason they do what they're doing.