How do I (white person) respond to a non white person that makes something I say about their race? /u/ambivert_69 No such thing as stupid questions

I sometimes say things jokingly with someone that has nothing to do with race or anything like that, and often times I get the response like “is it because I’m black?”, or like this one at work the other night when I was jokingly referring to my co worker having a sassy attitude, by saying “she’s gotta love bossing people around like you” (me jokingly saying she’s lazy and that’s why she gets bossed around) and I got the response “people like me? What’s that suppose to mean huh?! Got something to say?”

I’ve went out of my way to avoid dark humor, especially racism, sexual trauma, and misogyny, because it’s not really funny to me, but yet things I say get twisted into something about these things (usually race), and then I look like a bad person in front of people nearby.

How do I avoid things having anything to do with racism, while peers and coworkers of color are the ones brining it up? It lowkey kind of scares me and makes me wanna walk on egg shells, because it only takes the wrong person at the wrong time to make it seem like I’m talking about their race and then I get treated differently cause of what they said.

I sometimes say things jokingly with someone that has nothing to do with race or anything like that, and often times I get the response like “is it because I’m black?”, or like this one at work the other night when I was jokingly referring to my co worker having a sassy attitude, by saying “she’s gotta love bossing people around like you” (me jokingly saying she’s lazy and that’s why she gets bossed around) and I got the response “people like me? What’s that suppose to mean huh?! Got something to say?”

I’ve went out of my way to avoid dark humor, especially racism, sexual trauma, and misogyny, because it’s not really funny to me, but yet things I say get twisted into something about these things (usually race), and then I look like a bad person in front of people nearby.

How do I avoid things having anything to do with racism, while peers and coworkers of color are the ones brining it up? It lowkey kind of scares me and makes me wanna walk on egg shells, because it only takes the wrong person at the wrong time to make it seem like I’m talking about their race and then I get treated differently cause of what they said.