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My friends back home are the best and I love them all very much, but occasionally, I would feel disconnected from their sense of humor. There was something about the jokes they would make about people from different cultural backgrounds and from overseas that irritated me. I have been brought up to treat everyone with respect and I knew my parents would not laugh at such things, so when my friends would lightly make racial fun at other people, it was naturally not amusing to me. There seemed to be a stereotype for every country, race and cultural group and there was constant attention to phenotype. I eventually got frustrated at this ignorance and lack of sensitivity and demanded why they thought it was so funny. They were completely adamant that they were not racist because they did not “hate” other “races.” One of my friends said that she was simply interested in different cultures. I found all of their jokes to be very superficial and concluded that even though they may be interested in ethnicity, they approach it and think about it in an immature way.