I mucked up please help me out
Hi everyone,
I need to ask something that I never thought I would ever have to ask in my entire lifetime. What I need to make clear before I ask though, is that I am a huge advocate for racial equality and have always stood by the rights of immigrants, people of different ethnic backgrounds and that's how I've been for my entire life and will continue to be. But I think I've mucked up big.
I have a group of 4 that I'm in for an anatomy lab, and a couple of weeks ago, we were playing with different coloured wires to mark different nerves. One of the girls (who is european) was saying how it was black and like kept saying it but not in a mean or racial way at all. We were overall talking about different TV shows that depict different ethnic peoples and she said 'black nerve' again to which I then realised that there was a man of African ethnicity in the table behind her and I just told her maybe we shouldn't be saying black over and over again. The mood of the entire table was light, and we were not serious in any way and we don't have any malice at all. On Monday, he was standing in front of a black curtain at the future of the lecture theatre - the girls (who are both european and very lovely, like genuinely very nice) turned to me and said do you remember our conversation to which I replied yes. We exahnged another few words and I can't remember what it was but my said "But guys in all honesty" and then I stopped and said nothing at all. They turned around and then about 2 minutes later one of the girls turned and said to me "Were you just about to say you can't see him?" and I stopped for a moment and agreed. I am killing myself for agreeing. They cracked up - again the mood is light. They said that it was the best timing of a joke since last lab.
My question is this - none of us were being racist at all, and I didn't even say anything, I agreed to something that they said. But what if he finds out? We have different circles and these girls are very very nice and one of them even came up to me and said that she knows I feel bad and that it'll only stay as a joke between the 3 of us. I have been killing myself about this for 2 days. I am not a racist. I never have been. And I know they wouldn't say anything because they really are genuine. But I can't stop thinking of the worst possible scenario where that guy finds out, as we are all doing the same course but we have such different circles. I didn't mean it at all ...
