The principals here are professional athletes. It is about the damage done when somebody posts or reposts on social media without thinking through what they post for the world to see.
Back in July 2020, a firestorm erupted when DeSean Jackson of the Philadelphia Eagles reposted a series of anti-Semitic messages. He has made what appears to be a sincere apology and is taking steps to patch things up with the Jewish community. In his apology, he said, “I didn’t understand what this passage was saying” about one of those anti-Semitic posts. We will get into the specifics of what he posted later on.
I believe him. I have seen people repost items on social media that I was horrified with, mainly because I knew the people well enough to know (or hope) that they didn’t share those beliefs. Sometimes, I wonder if people even read what they pass along to all their friends.
And I say that about Jackson even though I am Jewish. He made a ghastly mistake but has profusely apologized and promised to improve himself. I take that at face value and can forgive him for his statements.
What made matters worse was when former NBA player Stephen Jackson tried to defend DeSean Jackson. In a since-deleted Instagram video, Stephen Jackson said, “So I just read a statement that the Philadelphia Eagles posted regarding DeSean Jackson’s comments. He was trying to educate himself and people and speak the truth. Right? He’s speaking the truth. You know he doesn’t hate nobody, but he’s speaking the truth, the facts he knows, and trying to educate others.”
Now that sure sounds like Stephen Jackson is defending DeSean Jackson’s anti-Semitic comments as “the truth.” But Stephen Jackson claimed he was misunderstood. He said he was speaking only about the fact that the Eagles did not cut Riley Cooper, a white Eagles receiver who was caught on video saying the n-word in 2013. Stephen Jackson said that DeSean Jackson was upset about that.
Said Stephen Jackson, “Y’all took the video the wrong way. I said he (DeSean Jackson) was right from a conversation we had before I got on Live about how they’re handling him and how they handled Cooper when he said the n-word. They didn’t handle them the same way, and that wasn’t right. And that’s what I was talking about.”
But how do Stephen Jackson’s statements that DeSean Jackson was trying to educate people make any sense if he talked about a private conversation between them? Even if we were to give Stephen Jackson the benefit of the doubt (he said he loves Jews), it would have been better if he stopped talking after that.
The next day, in a conversation with Fred Katz of The Athletic, when Katz was giving Stephen Jackson a chance to say that he was not claiming that Jewish people were trying to divide the black community, Jackson replied, “You know that for a fact? Do you know who the Rothschilds are? They own all the banks.”
The claim about the Rothschild family has for centuries been the focus of anti-Semitic vitriol and conspiracy theories.
Stephen Jackson also posted this statement on Instagram: “Your race’s (sic) pain doesn’t hurt more than the next race’s pain. Don’t act like your hardships are more devastating than ours. And you wonder why we’re fighting for equality.”
One can only assume he is speaking about the Jewish race, given his previous comments. So he is accusing me and other Jewish people of discounting the sufferings of Black people in comparison to the sufferings of our race.
Wide receiver Marquise Goodwin, then an Eagle, left a comment on one of DeSean Jackson’s posts. Goodwin said, “I wish people commented this much on a BLM topic.” Goodwin later posted that “the Jewish community is lashing out at me” for that comment. He then posted this on Instagram: “I understand the Jewish community is mad at me for commenting on (Jackson’s) page yesterday. I honestly don’t see how I was being insensitive, disrespectful, or even supportive of his previous message. I never once said I agreed or disagreed with anything!”
Goodwin indeed disagreed with Jackson’s comments. I met Goodwin when he was a 49er, and he is a great guy, and I would not suspect him of anti-Semitism. And I understand what he is trying to say: that atrocities committed against the Black community are often overlooked.
But now let’s look at those initial social media posts by DeSean Jackson. One was a quote attributed to Adolf Hitler (although Snopes has debunked the attribution), which said that white Jews “will blackmail America. [They] will extort America; their plan for world domination won’t work if the Negroes know who they were.” The quote also said that white Jewish people were secretly behind horrendous acts of violence against people of color, including lynching.
DeSean Jackson’s posts also lauded Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam. Farrakhan has made numerous anti-Semitic claims and comments, including about the Rothschilds. In a speech last year, Farrakhan said he was “here to separate the good Jews from the satanic Jews.”
I think any race is entitled to define what is offensive to them. If Goodwin thought about how utterly offensive those posts by DeSean Jackson were, would he have tried to compare the degree to which Jewish people are upset with those comments to comments on a Black Lives Matter topic? I hope not. This is not a matter of comparing which groups have been most hated.
The sad part about all of this is that Blacks and Jews once literally walked arm-in-arm during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. But Farrakhan and his followers (and his reposters) have helped drive a wedge between the Jewish and Black communities.
We cannot stop people like Farrakhan from denigrating minority groups. But we can be careful to read through everything we are considering reposting before we hit the send button and it’s too late.
Perhaps a bit of Jewish wisdom from the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament should guide us: “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” There are more than enough words of anger these days. Let’s see if a gentler approach might help.
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This column first appeared in The Vacaville Reporter on July 9, 2020.
I hope you received some positive feedback when this article first ran and again with this post. Well said.