I'm ethnically honky, but have found myself being complimented on how I've played POCs in the past. It's always kind of blown my mind, because in my mind all I've been doing is "playing a character who fits into the IC situation." But like, when I played a Sabbat vampire who was a 6'3" very dark skinned African-American man, what people seemed to be saying was "thanks for not playing a gangsta rap BlackedRaw.com stunt cock from The Hood." (Then again, this was a game with a low bar, where there was another vampire whose character concept was "angry black woman" whose channel title or alias or something was 'Black Lady.')
For a while, I had the above character while also playing a petite irony-poisoned milk-white-skinned California-girl vampire, and the ways that the same players would seek out interaction on that character over the black male character were a trip.