Yeah mixture of cowardice and "my racist politics aren't racist if i treat actual members of this group as people and have four randomly chosen nuances which make me sophisticated in my own mind"

It's the phenomenon of white racism where they enjoy having friends of people they are oppressing.

Probably it. Behind closed doors versus insulting someone to their face etc etc.

but also I’m thinking of the none-too-rare phenomenon of “pausing rant about ‘immigrants taking our jobs’ to reassure immigrant coworker sitting at the table that ‘obviously we don’t mean people like you’”