I just got up from conversation with a couple of older black men, that I said “well I got to go back to work and start cracking the whip.” And it occurred to me then that it was probably a really insensitive stupid thing to say.
Sadly, it hadn’t occurred to me until it’s already said.
I don’t think Jews were involved at all, which is another part of what makes it odd that it’s sometimes offensive. There is a similar British slang word, and Germans also immigrated to New York where it is thought to have originated in the prisons.