She isn't over compensating. At least she wasn't originally. The first few times at her job as a nurse she probably walked in polite and they treated her just the same so now she has a adapted to try to fix it. It was originally genuine politeness that has become compensation because of the way she was treated. These women assumed she was being polite for an ulterior reason beyond her doing her job and being polite. That is when her reason became being polite out of fear and discomfort. That isn't her fault and it's not racism on her part. It is prejudice against her. Imagine being fresh and new at your job. You walk into a room where there is a certain race of family. All of the women treat you like you're evil even though you were only nice to them. This happens over and over with the same group of people. In a practice where people are sued regularly for silly things, you start to make sure you're extra polite because you're worried about offending someone if you start to lean even a little in the direction of lackluster. You start to notice it is specifically one gender of said race. How could she not make the connection when it happens repeatedly over and over again and they're treating other genders of nurse around her or other races of nurse around her the same, discluding her, what appears to be on purpose. She is not being racist. Maybe they aren't either. Maybe it's prejudice. But it is still uncomfortable. And it still seems like a lot of people are pointing the finger at her just because she is a nice person trying to do her job. Life is hard. Why make it even harder for people who have hard jobs in this hard life in this hard world we live in?