Well, let's look at the full quote in context. We're still near the beginning of the book, we've just met Zaphod, he's speed-boated across Damogran, and he's just landed for the unveiling of the Heart of Gold. We're on an alien planet, following an alien 2-headed 3-armed president, and we've just had descriptions of various alien lifeforms present in the audience, such as the Hooloovoo. In other words, we're as far away from normal life on Earth as we can be. Here's the quote then:
"Everyone beamed at him, or at least, nearly everyone. He singled out Trillian from the crowd. Trillian was a girl that Zaphod had picked up recently whilst visiting a planet, just for fun, incognito. She was slim, darkish, humanoid, with long waves of black hair, a full mouth, an odd little knob of a nose and ridiculously brown eyes. With her red head scarf knotted in that particular way and her long flowing silky brown dress she looked vaguely Arabic. Not that anyone there had ever heard of an Arab, of course. The Arabs had very recently ceased to exist, and even when they had existed they were five hundred thousand light-years from Damogran."
To clarify, this description isn't from Arthur's point of view as suggested above. Arthur is very, very far from this scene, just beamed onto a Vogon ship as the Earth was destroyed. This is the same third person omniscient narration we've had all along.
So why is it so vague then? Coded, as you say? Because we're meant to assume Trillian is not human, like everyone else around her! We're looking in on this extremely alien scene, seeing someone who looks just like an Arabic woman and going "well, no, that can't be... that's just some type of alien who looks an awful lot like an Arabic woman." If right then and there, Adams had written "Trillian was an Arabic woman," that completely undermines the reveal 56 pages later that Trillian is Tricia McMillan and is indeed from Earth.
"It’s almost like Adams was doing everything he could to avoid designating Trillian as a specific race, or even just outright describing her as dark-skinned/a person of color." -> Exactly! Yes! Because he doesn't want us to realize she's a human yet.
Personally, when I read that reveal, I immediately went "Oh my gosh, so she really was an Arabic woman!" I think that's the intention.
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