A friend from Canada says "I really Jewed him down" after a deal at a photography store, and the speaker wonders if the phrase is antisemitic. He explores how everyday expressions like "gypped" and "went Dutch" carry prejudiced origins, and whether people using them casually are responsible for the slurs embedded inside.
I've told the story, but I haven't told it probably in years. In my early 20s, I was with a friend. A Canadian friend was visiting. I don't recall how we knew each other. Canadian friend. He's also into photography, so we went to a photography store in Manhattan. And when we left, he said, boy, I really Jewed him down. And I remember thinking, that's an anti-Semitic term, to Jew somebody down. So how should I react? That's what I remember thinking. Am I with an anti-Semite? And then I thought, well, if he's an anti-Semite, why is— why does he like me so much? Why are we friends? So I completely ruled out that my friend, unbeknownst to me all this time, was really an anti-Semite. He came from rural Canada. It was a matter of speech, just like we would say, "Man, did I get gypped," not thinking, "Oh, that's a reference to gypsies." And that's a bigoted way of expressing being cheated. So if you say, "I got gypped," or, "We went Dutch," are you hostile to gypsies or to Netherlanders?
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