Disrespect from your own

One of my PhD colleagues came to the office livid yesterday because one of his students had demanded that he repeat an explanation for the fourth time because the student's tution fees paid his salary. The student in question was BME as is my colleague, who was sure that the student wouldn't have dared to be so rude to a white British lecturer. I agreed with him, and my mind went back to two incidents--both relatively minor but one more unsavoury than the other. One was when the resident paedophile of the Buckingham palace was visiting our university to inaugurate a building. A few security guards were checking ids and bags at the entrance. I dutifully showed my ID but was asked to open my bag by a BME security guard. I complied, but then I saw another security guard wave in some white students without checking their bags. It was a relatively minor incident and didn't even register immediately. But a wave of anger came over me when I later realized what had happened. Its true that BME people are often the most zealous policers of BME bodies--that is one of the reasons colonialism was as destructive as it was. Secondly, it is  not easy to put yourself in the shoes of someone who has experienced abuse, so its best not to judge them for over-reacting, which we are wont to do especially if there was no physical violence involved.
The second incident was more annoying than offensive. The room that I was supposed to teach a class in was occupied at the appointed hour, so I peeped in and politely asked them to leave. I waited for a few minutes and when I peeped in again they had made no moves towards wrapping up. They were a group of brown girls, some of them in hijab. I told them to leave with some fairness and started loading my slides. They asked if they could stay while I taught my class, promising to be quiet. I declined and they asked me again at which point I was quite annoyed. First, they had ignored me when I had told them I had a class in that room. Then they were trying to play cute, no doubt thinking since I was brown they could get away with playing cute with me. They would never had tried that with a white British lecturer.