Just pointing this out so you and others know - it is justifiable to be shocked and angry at a statement like this, and to report the offense, regardless of your background. Even if your family tree is as white as a birch in the sun.
Reporting it will probably help you feel better in the sense that you didn’t just let it go, but you should fully expect that at best nothing will happen and at worst you will get labeled as a woke troublemaker.
If given a choice, would the company want to fire the racist or the OP. If the racist, yes. Give then a reason to fire him. If they want to fire the OP then they should not be a troublemaker.
I speak as someone who know a few people that were fired for justifiably speaking out against the wrong person.
For a maga, that’s an enlightened view. Many of them would have said only white men should be allowed to vote.
While sniping at RWNJ (Right Wing Nut Jobs) is fun, going back to supporting our OP, they may also want to consider speaking to any of the other personnel present at the time. Yes, speaking to HR (and again, don’t know if this is a big enough place to have dedicated HR, or just the boss) can have some risks. But if it’s 3-4 people who all report the same thing about -one- troublemaker, it’s a lot harder to go “a plague on both your houses”.
And if one or more of the others has already reported it, it will change the tone under which the OP may want to bring it up.
In addition to the “who would they rather fire” issue, do you feel your boss will keep your report confidential? Or do you think they will call Racist into their office and say, “DorkVader made a complaint about you …”
In my experience of the work world (60+ years), this is more likely to happen.
Depending on the nature & frequency of whatever bad thing the bad guy did, they often don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out which bad act the HR people are talking about and with whom they were interacting when they did it.
Said another way, the reachable person who only did the bad thing once mostly by accident can usually figure out who their accuser is unless they did it in a crowded lunch room and it stopped all conversations.
It’s the guys (95% guys) who’re unreachable and doing bad shit all day every day who might have a hard time figuring out which of the 25 people they harassed this week has lodged a complaint.
What I used to do with a supervisor who said inappropriate things to me was go to the unit head and say that I wanted to document the incident but not make a complaint or formal report at this time. This alerted the unit head to watch for the behavior, and let them know that if there were other complaints, they could approach me and ask if I wanted to join a formal complaint. This worked well.
I had one person behave very inappropriately with me. At the advice of the unit head, I went one step up to that person’s supervisor. We had a good talk and I let them know that if a formal complaint was useful for their management of the unit, I would make one. They said in this case it would be very useful, so I did. This escalated a bit in the system and resulted in the offender being moved out of some sensitive roles. Then some colleagues admired me for doing what they had been afraid to do, and I thanked them for their support rather than telling them they had been chickenshit for not following up on the abusive behavior they had witnessed.
An update for those who might be interested, I spoke with my manager about this, and am following his guidance right now. I’ve worked with him for about a decade now and trust his judgment on how to navigate this through the system successfully.
We both agree that punishment doesn’t seem appropriate for the person right now so are taking care in how we approach hr with this.
Glad you found a way forward that works for you. IME, it can be challenging to differentiate between incidents which are best handled with a “Cut that out - and don’t do it again” (with a note to a manager’s or HR file, as opposed to “significant” transgressions which merit major repercussions.
People screw up - and some people screw up WRT matters which are offensive, insulting, and which violate “equal protection” laws and principles. Some folk urge zero tolerance and scorched earth responses to all such transgressions. Others feel a case-by-case approach and consideration of various factors may warrant choosing among an array of possible responses.
Again, I’m glad you hit upon an approach you feel appropriate. Now - if the cow-orker does not learn and repeats (or escalates) - kick that trash to the curb.