Clumsy assumption from colleague

[Conspiracnation]

Colleague queued up for cloakroom at work event and handed their ticket to the person they presumed was the attendant. Turns out this person was a fellow party guest and they also are black. Colleague is concerned that this could be seen as a racist incident (eg him presuming that the the cloakroom attendant is black and therefore assuming that said person was cloakroom attendant)… I’m confused. Is there unconscious bias here?

Probably. Presumably he apologized though?

Depends where the person was, what they were wearing etc.

If someone was just passing in the direction of the cloakroom it's v different to them being stood inside it.

Need more details really

What is there to be ‘confused’ about?

I think more explanation as to why the assumption was made could be needed.

If the person was for example stood behind a counter and looked as if they were an attendant then perhaps it's not as awful of a mistake as it first appears.

Surely someone would only assume someone was working in a cloakroom if the person was stood in the staff area of a cloakroom.

So if that's not the case then it's a difficult assumption to explain away.

Presumably it depends on why they thought this person was the attendent? If they were standing in a position that appeared to be separate form the queue and had just hung someone else's coat for them (for example) then it's an obvious mistake and notjing to do with race. If they were hunting for someone manning the coatroom and their eyes settled on the only black person nearby for no reason other than race, then yes that's pretty awful.

I mean I recently called the waiter over and it was a fellow diner, slightly embarrassed for a moment but he was white so I didn't think further on it.

We have probably all done this at least once on out lives, especially if alcohol is involved

So the being black thing is likely not a factor, I'd say your colleague and you are over thinking

"I mean I recently called the waiter over and it was a fellow diner" This happened to dh. We went out straight from work, he had taken his tie off and was wearing his white shirt and black trousers. As he was bringing our drinks back from the bar an elderly couple tried to give him their plates and were really pissed off when he walked past them!

I agree it depends of the situation, where the colleague was stood, what they were wearing etc.

Usually cloak room attendants are behind a counter. If an interloper was behind the counter and shouldn't have been then it would be fair to assume they worked there. If there were 5 other white people milling about and your friend zeroed in on the only black face, then yes, they're a twat.

it might be unconscious bias more details needed but equally could be just a mistake. It’s happened with me at shops many times e.g if someone’s got a jacket of the same colour as shop’s uniform.

Honestly, I think your friend worrying that he may be seen as racist for handing a coat to a black person is more discriminatory than mistakingly thinking somebody was a cloak room attendant.
The assumption is that black people are normally cloak room attendants and on this occasion he got it wrong?!

I have accidentally asked a white person in Tesco where something was because they had a blue fleece on. I apologised, laughed and didn’t give it another thought.

Thanks for the reports about this. We have some concerns about the OP's intentions here so we're going to remove the thread, in order to have a little look behind the scenes.