I work at a restaurant and one of the requirements is that we must fold silverware at the end of the day before we are allowed to go home.

At the end of my shift I had a large party that left and I had noticed one of the silverware was leftover unused. I made a joke to one of my coworkers that we now have one less silverware to do (obvi wouldn’t reuse it, health standard reasons), but it’s not an uncommon joke for us servers to make when we notice a leftover unused silverware.

Now the table itself was a family that was predominantly African-American. A different guest a table over, overheard my joke and asked their waiter to talk to me.

The exact words I said were: “Great, one less silverware for us to do”.

This guest, a white woman, proceeded to tell me that what I said could “come off as racist” and that I should, “be careful about what you say”.

I apologized to her that my intentions were not that at all, and even explained the silverware situation at our restaurant, with her response being, “your intention doesn’t really matter. You came off as racist with that comment”.

Please, perhaps my ignorance is alluding me, but I was very confused by this claim. As a person of color I have always tried to be very understanding of stereotypes and the last thing I want to do is perpetuate negative stereotypes, but I’m very lost as to how what I said is racist or offensive? Taking the intention behind my comment out of context, would this be an off-color racist comment that you would find offensive?

I will take responsibility for making jokes that are best suited for when guests are gone. But also in my defense, we had been closed for over forty minutes and the guests who complained about me were campers who had finished their meal well before closing. So perhaps I turned on “closing mode” a bit too soon and was already in a “relaxed” mood to make jokes.

But again, I wish to approach this by genuinely wondering if this situation is at all racist?