This reminded me of the time I was called in for a disciplinary talk while working on one of the bars at Lord's a few years ago. Apparently the staff of that particular bar had drawn complaints for not seeming as cheery as usual- I explained this was because one member of staff had run out with the tip jar and brought it back with a noticeable amount missing, costing us all money. She just happened to be African, which I had thought was irrelevant, but when the whole of the bar's staff- mainly Asian and African- confronted her about it, she singled out myself and the only other white memeber of staff and said to the others "See? They see our colour, this is how they treat us..." By "They" of course she meant "white people" and it was in fact her being racist and trying to cover up the theft we'd all just witnessed. Of course it was me who ended up having to attend a disciplinary talk (fortunately they let me explain my case and cleared me of any wrongdoing) and while the racist was forced to apologise to us, she still got away with it, claiming her actions were "because of the menopause". Please do let us know if you ever get a call-out to a menopausally-motivated racist attack, I've never heard of one before... It's bad enough when it happens to mere bar staff who aren't doing an essential job, so hearing that people treat emergency services staff the same way just makes me even angrier. I get so angry when people assume I must be inherently racist because of my colour- this is just another form of prejudice and equally unacceptable. I still got it pretty regularly even while I was working for a community foundation, helping to distribute funding to projects set up to help, among others, minority groups. I was a volunteer at the time, but like you I did this work because I enjoyed it, it's just a shame a lot of people don't appreciate it. I think some people just like to seek attention by playing the victim, not unlike the woman who faked a collapse...