The point I am trying to make is that if everyone was absolutely certain that when a comedian makes a ‘racist’ comment that the only motivation for the comment was humour and laughter and that the comedian would have been prepared to say exactly the same thing about themselves even if the same funniness applied, I think no one would be upset.

When I was teaching high school students ten years ago, I was often inspired by how oblivious to race my students seemed to be, especially compared to my classmates when I was in high school. I think, as you suggested, that merely exposing people to different kinds of people, caucasian, African-American, Asian, gay, straight, etc. helps a great deal. It’s hard to be opposed to gay marriage when more than a quarter of the coworkers you set next to every day are gay. Sooner or later, you come around to the conclusion that people are just people.

Your kids, being born yet another generation later, will see even less reason to scapegoat other races. Until one day, children will read history books about race relations in the early twenty-first century and wonder how people could have possibly been so hung up on something so stupid. Just as when I was a boy I was confused as to how here in America, people could have once thought that owning other people was okay.

I do hope that in the midst of all this, we don’t lose our sense of humor about race. Being overly sensitive when the intention of the comedian is clearly not malicious doesn’t help. And sometimes racial humor, if done correctly, can open our eyes to our own prejudices.