So this happened in my math class. One of my Hispanic friends, Ester (I may have spelled that wrong.) was loudly arguing with some black kid across the room. I would not mention their races but it's relevant to this story.

This dude is ranting about how "Hispanics should have to take French for their foreign language." Apparently he believes that all Hispanic people already speak Spanish, so Spanish isn't a "foreign language" for them.

Now there are sooo many things wrong with this statement so I'm now time freezing the story to go over them.

The obvious: not all Hispanics are fluent in Spanish. In fact some of them don't know any Spanish AT ALL. 

Aside from that, in an amazing world where all Hispanics speak Spanish, what if they also speak French? Then where do you put them? What? Now they can't graduate from my Highschool because they know too much? That would be more fair?

Even if someone comes to a school already knowing Spanish, they have actually learned Spanish just as much as you have, they just did it before some other people.

Finally school is an institution designed to make sure you have a certain amount of knowledge, not a place where you have to put in an allotted amount of work to graduate.

So me and my friends in our little nerd corner, basically a bunch of advanced placement kids who actually work in there, are rolling our eyes at this boy.

Except Steven. Steven hasn't even noticed yet. Steven is a special kind of stupid.

Honestly poor Ester doesn't have any help against this idiot, because we're all too quiet. I think most of the class is siding with the 'Hispanics should take French' argument.

So after he finishes telling Ester, "you have an advantage because you knew more about Spanish than I did." I jump in.

"I watched Dora the Explora when I was five, does that mean I should have to take French too?" Yes I used Dora the Explora as an argument. I am okay with that and everyone took me perfectly seriously for some reason.

"No I'm saying Hispanics should have to take French because their culture is Spanish." Looking back he might have actually believed that there's something in people's DNA that gives them language abilities. I'm not sure.

"Well now you're just being racist," I reply. "Not all Hispanic people speak Spanish."

So he turns to Ester and asks "do your parents speak Spanish?"

"My mom speaks Spanish and French."

"See that proves my point," he says.

"But her mom also speaks French. Now what's she supposed to take?"

"Okay but she knows more Spanish, and they don't all know French."

This actually went no where. The bell rang with the class watching us. He kept leading us in circles on the topic.

Afterwards I was thinking my efforts were completely pointless, when Ester came and thanked me for helping her. So yeah I actually helped someone today.

Later today I was told by someone, talking about a completely different issue, that we've been fighting over, that I'm too confrontational and I need to respect other people's opinions.

I've thought for a little while about this. Sometimes I get really worked up over issues like LGBT+ issues, racism, gun control, other people's relationships, freedom of religion, and aphobia/homophobia/biphobic/panphobia/being assholes to those of different sexualities. Some of these are gray areas where I have no business talking about. This can be considered a character flaw in some instances.

Thing is yes other people have their own opinions, and yes that's okay, it's actually a good thing, but when someone says something that hurts other people it doesn't matter if your my friend or a total stranger I'm going to tell you off. I stand up for what I believe in, and I don't think that's a bad thing.