If they're your friends or they know you're joking, I think it's a BS answer to all your problems. If you don't understand what I mean...

Say you're having a bad day (like I did today) and a Jewish friend of mine does something stupid/annoying, when I'm quite tired. I just looked at him for a while and said "Dirty Jew". He laughed, I laughed and we all went about our business...

As for Taffy: I'm half Indian...lay some of those spice jokes on me!

If you can't make fun of yourself, you're just not any fun in my opinion. If you defend yourself every time you get made fun of, you'll go insane.