Not sure if this is the right category to ask, but here I go (please mind that I’m not a native speaker of English, so please bear with me):
Could you please help me in evaluating if the term “Piece of Cake” could be regarded as offending, espically regarding racism?
I want to use it in my text and after searching the web the orgin of the phrase may have a racist implication.
How is the word perceived today in particular by poc (which I’m not)? Is it ok to use it without offending someone?
I had never heard about this.
It would surprise me quite a bit, just because there are very similar idioms in a number of different languages and cultures.
In Italian we say “as easy as drinking a glass of water”. In French they have an idiom with “gateau” (cake).
A quick search on Reverso Context showed me that also in Spanish and German they have idioms that use a familiar food to mean that something is very easy. And, possibly, also in Russian, Japanese, Chinese they have similar idioms (I say “possibly” because, even with machine translation, it’s difficult for me to ascertain the literal meaning of an idiom in those languages)
So it looks quite harmless to me, obviously I could be wrong.
It is exceedingly difficult to stay updated about the ever-growing baggage of U.S. racial taboos
This seems to smell a bit fishy, at least in the U.S.
Therefore I decided against “piece of cake” in the meantime and used another term.
Thanks again for your time and effort!