At this years' White House Correspondents' Dinner, comedian Michelle Wolfe caught a lot of flak for jokes she made about Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the media. Weeks before, the performance of comedian Hannibal Buress was cut short by the University of Loyola-Chicago after he made a joke about Catholic priests. Earlier this year, Chris Rock was criticized for a joke about police shootings, and David Chapelle was called transphobic because of a joke from his 2017 special. The same thing has happened to me - I've performed at comedy shows before and there have been more than a few angry people coming up to me after shows, calling me a racist or a sexist.

I, of course, am not any of these things. Nowadays, it has become almost impossible to tell a joke that isn't so vanilla it makes you cringe without some sort of public outcry. The argument made by those against these jokes is that they stereotype and marginalize different groups, which is true...if you don't think critically about said jokes.

Just because a comedian acknowledges or makes light of a stereotype, that doesn't mean that they believe or support it.

I will acknowledge, however, that there are certain jokes in poor taste, but these social justice warriors can't tell the difference. It doesn't matter whether the joke was actually offensive or hurtful or not. All you have to do is use a specific word, regardless of context, and they will gather in the town square to burn you at the stake.

That's my main issue with this - it doesn't matter if the joke actually works or what the point of it is. It's just certain words that trigger them, and those words are not to be used under any circumstance, no matter what context you're using them in.

Another thing is that their argument that these jokes hurt certain groups is completely hypocritical. The groups that you're not allowed to make jokes about are changing all the time. I call these groups "protected species." Men are fine - gay men are not. The Kardashians are fine, as long as you don't joke about Caitlyn Jenner, who is an inspiration for some reason. You can't say anything bad about Jews, except if you're a Muslim because then it's just a cultural difference we have to tolerate.

Basically, if you win the victim Olympics, and society deems you the most marginalized group for whatever reason, you are off limits at the open mic. Comedy is dying, and social justice warriors are killing it. There are many problems facing America today, but there's one we can fix right now. Figure out how to take a joke.