Harmless may be a wrong term.   A black person will be 'noticed' by some but may not lead to negetive treatment, sometime over over accommodating.   Skin color may trigger all sorts of responses.   As I mentioned before bias affects all ou decisions and bias is not always negative.   Ex. When is the last you were on a Eugene crowd and thought 'there's a white woman' .

Charles knows evey day that he is a racial minority and assumptions are made because of his skin color.  If you and I lived in a community of 80% blacks we'd feel the same thing.  

That doesn't mean every reaction is harmful to either group.   It's goofy to believe that people are color blind.