I grew up in Bonham, Texas, population 7,000, seventy-five miles north of Dallas, ten miles from the Oklahoma border. Rural is one description of Bonham, but it is not one that I ever really believed. After all, Sam Rayburn, the longest-serving Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives hailed from our small town, and, though my paternal great-grandparents were one of the founding families of that Texas county way back in the early 1800’s, they were far from clodhoppers. The Leatherwoods, along with a good many other citizens in that small place, were urbane in their manner, lived in tastefully decorated homes, ate delicious food and were driven by a desire to give back to their community by serving on the governing boards of their churches and civic organizations. In other words, there was a certain level of genteel civility that reigned, and could hold its own in far more urban places. I never felt as though I came from “the sticks.”
My brother, John, moved to Italy while in his twenties and become an ex-patriot there: living in a small northern town, driving a fancy sports car and owning a franchise of the very posh The British School, whose focus was teaching English to Italians. In 1975, I moved to Italy, too, after graduating from college, and went to work, with John’s help, at Milan’s The British School, located on Via Montenapoleone, one of the top fashion streets in Europe.
One day in the teacher’s lounge I was sitting with another American teacher, a pretty mid-30’s woman who was from New York and married to an Italian. She was admiring my new boots, which I had purchased the weekend before. “So, what did you pay for these?” she asked.
“The vendor wanted 50,000 lire,” I said, “but I jewed him down to 30,000 and he took it.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “What did you just say?”
“He took 30,000 lire for them.”
“No, the other part.”
I stopped for a moment, recalled what I had just said and then felt the color drain from my face. “Oh, dear, I have never realized what that expression actually means until this very minute.”
She stared at me, blue eyes blazing. “I am Jewish and I am deeply offended.”
I willed the floor to open so that I could drop right down to hell. I had never felt more humiliated – for good reason – in my life. “I’m so sorry,” I managed to choke out. “I will never, ever say that again.”
I look back on that day and realize that because I had grown up in North Central Texas where there were literally no Jews besides my friend Mike’s stepdad who was half-Jewish, but a practicing Unitarian, that I had no real awareness of what a racial slur, “Jewing someone down” was. That phrase was bantered around as a matter of course in my hometown and I honestly had never stopped and asked myself what it meant. There were other equally offensive slurs common in the Texas parlance of the 1950’s and ‘60’s, but any related to African-Americans were expressly banned in our home. This one, however, was not and now I realize what an oversight that was on my parents’ part and, ultimately, on my own.
I have NEVER used that phrase again, and I am deeply embarrassed even now to admit that blithe reference that day in the teacher’s lounge in Milan. I am grateful for the honest and direct reaction I received. Who knows how many more people I would have offended before I was given my rightfully deserved comeuppance.
I tell this story now because I think it’s important to realize how racial slurs work their way into everyday usage, and are often repeated without awareness. I believe it’s important to stand up and say, “No,” just as my fellow teacher did with me. At twenty-two, I was clearly not as worldly as I thought I was and I revealed my ignorance with a phrase that not one person in my community had ever challenged.
Some people might scoff and say that we have become “too PC” in our culture; that this phrase and others like it are not meant to denigrate anybody in particular, but are simply colloquial sayings that convey a general meaning that others understand. My response would be that it’s easy to say that if you are not the targeted group. We rarely hear phrases that demean white middle class men, for example. How many times have you heard, “I white-manned him down,” or that piece of equipment is “white-man rigged” or “He’s a lazy white man.” Never is the answer.
I am grateful to the young Jewish woman who set me straight and I hope others will do the same if I stumble upon another moment when I show myself as an inadvertent bigot. We have to help each other learn how to speak respectfully to all human beings, and sometimes honesty is the one and only cure. I hope I’ll have the courage to stand up if I hear others speak ill of one group or another, accidentally or on purpose. I hope you’ll have the courage, too.
Comments