Hi Reddit, I (Hispanic, 16) got into a weird situation recently and I’m still confused about whether I was in the wrong.

I was chatting with two guys—let’s call them Mike and Pedro—who I met through a mutual friend. They’re really close and tend to act kind of weird with each other, but whatever, that’s not really the point. One day, during a group convo, Pedro sent a picture of a tattoo someone had. Our mutual friend was confused about what it was supposed to be.

Just trying to contribute, I said something like, “It’s probably an anime character” because to me, the style of the tattoo looked very anime-inspired—the eye was big and stylized, and it gave off that vibe. Almost immediately, Mike and Pedro jumped on me, saying my comment was racist because the guy in the tattoo was Asian, and I was “assuming” things and being disrespectful.

I tried to explain that I genuinely wasn’t trying to offend anyone—I just made a guess based on how it looked. But they kept going, basically trying to “educate” me in a way that felt more like they were just insulting me. Things escalated into a full-blown argument.

Eventually we cooled off, but later we got into it again because I made a joke like “I hate you guys” (in a sarcastic way), since they were teasing me earlier. Pedro and Mike took it personally and went on another rant about how I was racist and how “being Hispanic doesn’t excuse racism.” He even said things like I’m still “white” because of my skin color and that race is about how you look. That part kind of threw me because… there are plenty of light-skinned Hispanics, right?

Anyway, I never intended to be racist, and if what I said came off wrong, I truly apologize. But at the same time, I feel like they were super aggressive and rude about it. They called me “sensitive” and kept acting like I was some kind of villain when I was just trying to clarify a tattoo.

So… AITA for defending myself in that situation? Or should I have just stayed quiet and taken it?