Yes exactly - subconscious racism. I hate to admit it but I fall victim to that. By no means do I belong to the KKK and I do believe to the bottom of my toes that we all deserve the same opportunites and we deserve to be treated with equal amount of respect regardless of race or religion - but I still approach people of other cultures with some what of a hesitancy. I recognize this as a fault of mine - mostly acquired through upbringing in a small town in the USA where diversity is slim to none. This is part of the reason my husband and I moved here - to work on changing that in ourselves but more importantly exposing our children to different cultures. I think we as a generation should recognize our faults and improve upon them through our children in the next generation - it is the best that I can do at least.

So with that said - no expecting to see non-westerners on a building project is not racist but believing that westerners are too good to be working in those positions would be racist. Does that make sense? Of course what Nigel wrote was not as obviously blatant but it just occured to me that maybe it was an unconsious sense of entitlement.
I am in no way looking to argue with you but I would love to hear your response. Thanks