Everyone, find your safe space! Here comes Jesse Watters, of “Watters’ World,” and it’s raaaacissst!

So says Esquire writer Luke O’Neil, who has all the appearance of a liberal hipster (ooh, can I say that?). He cites a recent video of the Fox News feature guy Jesse Watters visiting New York City’s Chinatown as proof.

Lectured O’Neil, probably fueling his indignation with an overpriced latté: “You might think that the least Republicans could do would be to refrain from reducing them to the most obvious, hackneyed group of decades-old stereotypes, but Orientalism is a hell of a drug, man.”

Yeah, man. Hell of a drug. So is the power trip O’Neil gets from being a scold. And now New York City mayor Bill de Blasio has demanded that Watters be removed from the airwaves.

The vile, racist behavior of Fox’s Jesse Watters in Chinatown has no place in our city. @FoxNews – keep this guy off TV.

— Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) October 6, 2016

Interestingly, Watters also came under fire from a writer at the conservative Federalist. Not only did writer Rich Cromwell criticize Watters for being a raaaacist, he also labeled him a “jackass” for the Chinatown video. For good measure he added a video of Watters supposedly insulting Italians, too.

I have no idea if Watters is an actual, bona fide racist. However, I think his humor is a throwback to an earlier time when people laughed over ethnic humor without getting their knickers in a twist. (That’s “knickers,” as in ‘trousers.’ You’re welcome.)

Allow me to indulge in a story.

About 20 years ago — back in the late 1990’s, if I remember correctly — my parents came to visit our family in Kansas City for Christmas. My father needed a winter overcoat, so we took a trip to the Country Club Plaza, an upscale shopping district. He found one coat he particularly liked, and began examining the label. He noticed it was made in Italy.

“Oh! Made in WOP Land!” he announced.

I cringed. Thankfully, the salesman didn’t bat an eye. I don’t remember if Dad bought the coat, but we went to lunch after that. After we were seated and Dad left to wash his hands, I told my mother, “Ma, you’ve got to get him to stop saying those things in public.”

She knew what I meant. “I’ve tried,” she answered. When my dad returned to the table, she told him about his comment. He replied, “What? That’s what they were called. WOPs — stood for Without Passport.” He was truly clueless.

The irony is that my father — of German-English background — has always been fond of Italians.

When he was a boy, growing up in immigrant-rich Gary, Indiana, his first paper route was in an Italian neighborhood. While his friends warned him about the “Mafia gangsters,” he found the people on his route to be warm and generous to a fault — he was showered with Christmas gifts, and the Italian mamas were always plying him with goodies. During World War II, he was attached to a Army Air Force bomber group stationed in Italy. His best buddy on his crew was from a Sicilian immigrant family, and they stayed in touch for decades until his old friend’s passing.

For better or for worse, this lack of über-sensitivity was a hallmark of that generation. Growing up during the Great Depression, taking on tyranny in World War II — they weren’t coddled and given “safe spaces” to be sheltered from the world. Times were tough, and the humor could be as well.

Another member of that generation, director and producer Mel Brooks, turned brilliant irreverent comedy into a goldmine. I wonder if his 1974 film Blazing Saddles could be made and marketed today, with its sexual and ethnic stereotypes. Remember this covered wagon scene, with Jewish Indians? Jewish Indians? Yep. And the Yiddish-speaking chief is Brooks himself.

I’m not here to carry water for Watters. I don’t watch the O’Reilly Factor, in which he is featured, so I don’t see his video clips very often. But just stop already with the raaaacist finger-pointing. Watters uses old school ethnic humor meant to harm no one. And if the easily offended don’t like it, they don’t have to watch it.