When I was growing up, your race was just another word for your nationality, your skin colour was your ethnicity. The Human race was our species, and being racist was being prejudice against a person's ancestry. The first time I remember people complaining about racist jokes was when it was trendy to make gags about thick Irishmen.
I have always loved that first line... which I first read in a comic novel, "Anyone Got A Match" by Max Shulman. Ever since reading "There is only one race, the human race", I have been repeating it ever since.
There was in interview with Morgan Freeman, and the subject about race came up.
I don't remember the whole conversation, but what I do remember was Morgan saying, "I'll stop calling you a white man, and you stop calling me a black man, how about you just call me Morgan'. I thought that was brilliant.
You know I've said that myself a million times but it's like people just don't process it