So I'm teaching an online zoom course with a very small number of students

It's been a delightful course to teach. Has me invigorated for the 1st time in many years. I feel very connected to the students.

A student asked me if they could meet with me. I assumed it was about a grade. They wanted to alert me to something that happened that they thought might have been a micro aggression. They were very pleasant and informative and repeated many times that they know I care about these kind of things and that's the only reason they are taking the time to let me know about this.

The situation is a few classes ago apparently as students were logging on I was trying to remember one of the student's names. And I said "What is The student's name, not Alex but the other one." There were only 2 students not yet on the zoom in this tiny class Alex was one and there "the other 1." Apparently that was taken as a racist comment since both students are Black. As if I had said the other Black student (i.e., they all look alike). I was clearly asking about who had not yet logged on and those were the only 2 students not yet there.

It's not clear to me and perhaps not to the student I was talking to whether either of the students were upset or if anybody else was even aware of it although perhaps one other person might be.. It was a bit vague and I didn't feel like pressing

The student was commenting that they thought I should say something to the class. We talked about it for a while but both of us agreed it wasn't clear what I could possibly say that didn't sound defensive or that wasn't perhaps starting a conversation that most students weren't even aware of

Not a good way to start my day especially about a class I was feeling good about

I know there's a lot of woke performity going on. I also don't want to ignore this if somebody was actually upset but I don't actually know that anyone was upset besides the student who contacted me.

My best judgment is to do nothing. That anything I do potentially is gonna make this bigger or worse

I am aware of many situations both where I teach and in other places where various things like this have blown up

I think the biggest issue for me is that it really makes me feel like the world is just too fragile and maybe retirement is a good idea

Both myself and the student I spoke with are white. I have no idea whether others in the class had the same (mis)perception of my sentence or were even aware of it. Although micro aggressions can be subtle and unconscious I am fairly sure I was saying I can't remember this person's name

We do spend a lot of time in this course discussing discussing issues of cross cultural dialog and diversity.

Edit: Thank you all for your feedback. It feels less big today