Addendum.

I think I blogged about this a long time ago, but years ago at the grocery store in my old neighborhood around Christmas I was asking the (cheerful) (mid-20s) (black) cashier who I always talked to about her classes with about what she did over the holidays and if she had spent time with family, and very matter-of-factly (but not meanly), she was like, "I don't have family like that."
I've thought of that many times since, and that has made changed the way I phrase things to people, since you just don't know where they're coming from.