Updating Our Language - Day 1
Throughout July we will be making posts about updating our language.
We live in a society that has normalized using many words and phrases with racist origins.
Part of the anti-racist work involves acknowledging you have used them, beginning the process of eliminating them from your vocabulary, and gently correcting others when you hear them used.
Are you ready for this part of the work?
“Cakewalk” or “Takes the cake”
The cakewalk was a pre-Civil War dance originally performed by enslaved people on plantation grounds.
The uniquely American dance was first known as the "prize walk"; the prize was an elaborately decorated cake. Hence, "prize walk" is the original source for the phrases "takes the cake" and "cakewalk.
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