racist euphemism of the day

[Jonathan Lighter]

>   Of course, it can't be racist because this tea-party/AFP activist wants
to help the poor ethnically-challenged families.

Not as absurd as you may think. "Ethnically-challenged" might be a
quasi-humorous euphemism for "of inferior ehnicity"; but the doesn't the
context suggest that it really means "of an ethnicity that faces unusual
(and unjustifed) social challenges"?

Of course, it's stupid either way. But not necessarily racist.

JL

On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 9:33 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      racist euphemism of the day
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> or so it appears: "ethnically-challenged families"
>
> http://goo.gl/56fje
> > Kids aren't going to charter schools if they're "A" students. They go
> > to charter schools because they're failing students and, by and large,
> > the charter schools have a higher percentage of poor families,
> > ethnically challenged families…
>
> Of course, it can't be racist because this tea-party/AFP activist wants
> to help the poor ethnically-challenged families.
>
> VS-)
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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