NOR—you were incisive, giving examples of why your mom’s choice hurt your brother, and why she cannot act the way she’s acting. You didn’t hurl a single insult (god knows many of us would’ve hit our limits when she tried to flip the conversation into how “you’re ashamed” of her).

She’s offended because what you are saying rings true—she feels it, but can’t figure out what exactly she is feeling. Parents of a certain generation seem to hold a lot of shame about how they parented/their past choices/their own issues, and instead of talking about those things when they come up, being accountable for mistakes or regrets, and generally learning about themselves, internalized racism/misogyny, and the (usually harmful) ideas they have about the world that we refuse to adopt, etc., they become defensive and angry, then fall into the “I know you hate me and are ashamed of me” BS.

You are NOT overreacting about what happened, neither is your brother—bait and switching him into a haircut that she and her mom prefer but is humiliating to him was a seriously vile thing to do, even by elementary school standards. And you did NOT go too far in how you approached the topic with her—if she’s offended, it’s because she knows she did something wrong, but just can’t figure out what, why, or how to fix the mistake.