[Insert Generalized Group Here] Jokes

Yesterday at work, we started telling jokes to pass the time, as we were bored. I'm not much of a joke-teller; the handful of jokes I remember include knock-knock jokes everyone's already heard and that one really funny nuns-in-Transylvania joke my Aunt Mary told me I save for when conversation falters and no one's saying anything. So I didn't contribute anything except listening.

One of my coworkers started rattling off joke after joke. He started with some general ones, and then became more and more specific as time went on. In other words, he started off with your average blonde joke and suddenly he was spouting ones that were sexist or relating to the Holocaust.

I am not and have never really been one for blonde jokes (mostly because I feel like people purposely tell me them because I'm blonde; though my coworker told me yesterday that my dirty blonde hair didn't count/qualify). But listening to jokes concerning race, sex, and the Holocaust (!!!!) really upset me. It just felt wrong to even consider making jokes about subjects as sensitive as this. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like there is no good thing in making fun of the Holocaust--one doesn't just toss around something that was responsible for tearing apart families and involved the genocide of innocent people.

But then there's the issue of making jokes about race and gender, and honestly, they make me extremely uncomfortable. Other than the crassness of the jokes themselves, I feel like I question the thoughts and motivation of the joke-teller as well. Can I really believe them when they insist they are not racist or sexist? And if they really aren't racist or sexist, then why would they even entertain the idea of telling those jokes?

I understand that we're all human; I've told my share of inappropriate jokes and laughed at stuff that I probably shouldn't have found funny....but I feel awful afterward. How could I even think these things? And I'm still trying to figure out the world in general, so maybe I'm just thinking too much into this. But every time I hear something like that--aside from the omnipresent stereotyping--all I can think about is the fact that it calls out our differences, what makes us unique, and takes and puts them into a bad light. And deep down, isn't that a form of prejudice?