This is something I should have written about a while ago. I am organising some voluntary work for other people. They have met most of the people they will be placed with - and one came across quite aloof and distant. I dismissed it as a class thing. Some kinds of British middle class are v distant and cold compared with other cultures. But for J it was potentially a "race" issue. She had encountered that kind of aloofness in a previous job and that time it was that classic racist thing, where you are almost invisible. What you say falls on deaf ears, but if someone else suggests the exact same thing, it's picked up and praised... that kind of thing.
Why I am writing this here is because it made me recognise my framework - the framework of whiteness. I realised that while I picked up the frostiness that J did, I explain it in terms of class, which is mutable and variable - so it's not so threatening. But if you understand it in terms of "race" - that can't change. A person can't change the colour of their skin or shape of their face. It's a deeper threat.