The article investigates how linguicism, racialisation and ethnicisation interconnect in a non-formal adult education setting, a non-governmental integration initiative targeting parents of small children in Sweden. Through ethnographic research at two sites where meetings were held, and a theoretical framework of combining raciolinguistic and phenomenology of whiteness, 'sideways' experiences are revealed. These consist of (i) visual markers (i.e. whiteness) creating assumptions about who is a language learner as seen through the eyes of the white Swedish perceiving subject, (ii) non-whiteness leading to assumptions about being 'a migrant' needing linguistic attention, (iii) the meetings being spaces where the 'non-white' language learner is missing, as benevolence on the surface masks exclusion on the basis of who can inhabit the meeting spaces. The theoretical application embarking from the white Swedish perceiving subject thus reveals the relationship of race and language in non-formal parent education.