racially challenged
- adjective
- /ˈreɪʃəli ˈtʃælɪndʒd/
- Offensive
:
racista
- The company issued an apology for its racially challenged advertising campaign.
Examples
-
Some jokes can come across as racially challenged, even if unintended.
-
Don't be so racially challenged when discussing diversity!
-
He was careful not to sound racially challenged during the meeting.
-
His comments were quite racially challenged during the meeting.
-
He made a racially insensitive remark that many considered racially challenged.
-
Her racially challenged comments at the conference left some attendees uncomfortable.
-
The film was criticized for its racially challenged humor that missed the mark.
Antonyms
How Racist
Surface Forms
Morphology
racially + challenged
The components 'racially' (concerning race) and 'challenged' (having difficulty) make it partially guessable as someone having problems related to race, so a learner could form a rough sense. However, the phrase is often used euphemistically or ironically to mean 'racially insensitive' or awkward in racial matters—a pragmatic/ironic shift that is not fully predictable from the parts and can be misinterpreted—so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Racially challenged may come from a joking habit of putting challenged after a word to make it sound polite, as in vertically challenged for 'short'. So it became a gentle or humorous way to say someone is 'awkward' or 'insensitive' about race.