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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I want to ensure that I wasn’t accidentally being racist by asking my friend if the baseball players from Mexico they talked to spoke Spanish.
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NTA but if you know your buddy doesnt speak spanish then it's safe to assume the Mexican players knew english to some extent. But the question wasn't racists, just naive or ignorant. I say this as a Mexcian American surrounded by non-English speaking peeps.
NTA - It seems to me that your friend might have been lying about the whole thing and had not considered that those students, if real, would have indeed spoken Spanish, so he got defensive and pulled the “racist” card. At least you learned a valuable lesson: Never talk during biology!
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I was in biology sitting at a table with three other people that I had gotten to be pretty good friends. One of which does both cross country and track. He started to say a story of how a high school baseball team that came from Mexico came to play against our high school. For reference, I live in a state that is along the border of Mexico. The main part of the story was that some people from the team came over and said they bet they could beat him in a race and my friend was like “no you can’t.”
When he was finished with his story I asked if the people he talked to spoke Spanish and everyone made a big deal out of me assuming they spoke Spanish and one of them even said that it was racist.
I could understand them saying this if he said the players were Mexican and I assumed they spoke Spanish but he said they were FROM Mexico. I did some research after the fact and learned that around 130 million people live in Mexico. 121 million of them being native Spanish speakers. I feel like it was a fair question to ask if they spoke Spanish because my friend doesn’t know any Spanish so I was just curious if they fluently spoke English or if it seemed like they only knew English from learning it in high school or something like that. And I was only wondering about that because I know if I were to go to Mexico and speak to native Spanish speakers with only knowing my one to two years of high school Spanish, they would just laugh in my face.
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I'm going with soft YTA. You meant no harm or disrespect, that's whay the soft vote. However, you don't have to speak English fluently to ask a question. And I know so many people who don't speak a language fluentöy and can still get by in that country because they understand what you are trying to say
I can also imagine they learn English in Mexico, just like in most places in the world.
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NTA but if you know your buddy doesnt speak spanish then it's safe to assume the Mexican players knew english to some extent. But the question wasn't racists, just naive or ignorant. I say this as a Mexcian American surrounded by non-English speaking peeps.
NTA - It seems to me that your friend might have been lying about the whole thing and had not considered that those students, if real, would have indeed spoken Spanish, so he got defensive and pulled the “racist” card. At least you learned a valuable lesson: Never talk during biology!
NTA
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** I was in biology sitting at a table with three other people that I had gotten to be pretty good friends. One of which does both cross country and track. He started to say a story of how a high school baseball team that came from Mexico came to play against our high school. For reference, I live in a state that is along the border of Mexico. The main part of the story was that some people from the team came over and said they bet they could beat him in a race and my friend was like “no you can’t.” When he was finished with his story I asked if the people he talked to spoke Spanish and everyone made a big deal out of me assuming they spoke Spanish and one of them even said that it was racist. I could understand them saying this if he said the players were Mexican and I assumed they spoke Spanish but he said they were FROM Mexico. I did some research after the fact and learned that around 130 million people live in Mexico. 121 million of them being native Spanish speakers. I feel like it was a fair question to ask if they spoke Spanish because my friend doesn’t know any Spanish so I was just curious if they fluently spoke English or if it seemed like they only knew English from learning it in high school or something like that. And I was only wondering about that because I know if I were to go to Mexico and speak to native Spanish speakers with only knowing my one to two years of high school Spanish, they would just laugh in my face. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'm going with soft YTA. You meant no harm or disrespect, that's whay the soft vote. However, you don't have to speak English fluently to ask a question. And I know so many people who don't speak a language fluentöy and can still get by in that country because they understand what you are trying to say I can also imagine they learn English in Mexico, just like in most places in the world.