I have just realised why something I am coordintating is going wrong. A white woman is working with a black man on a short project. In conversations she has been very interested in working with him and she's also aware of needing black role models in education and in teaching about history. And yet she has delegated the responsibility for him to another very junior and quite inexperienced person.
At one stage she said to me that she was surprised they weren't getting along, the man and this inexperinced person who works there. "They are both black" (not quite like that but definitely that quote).
When I said this to K, she told me she just realised why she had never properly managed M. She realised - with shame - that she always had problems telling her what to do, because she is African Carribean. The situation deteriorated and M was eventually fired. And yet while K worked there, she would have daily conversations about racism and anti-racism with other non-white colleagues. It was M's Jamaican-ness that tripped K's racism, not any other identity.