America’s current reckoning over race has made this much clear: People are calling out bigotry wherever they find it, whether in the Manhattan, New York, offices of a glossy magazine or the grimy corridors of a Midwestern police department. And when they do, they are not mincing words, but naming things for what they are.
Which makes the
anti-Semitic social media posts by Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson, later doubled down on by former NBA player Stephen Jackson, all the more troubling.
The Eagles’ Jackson shared a quote falsely attributed to Adolf Hitler. It said, Jews “will blackmail America. [They] will extort America, their plan for world domination won’t work if the Negroes know who they were.”
The controversy was inflamed when retired NBA player Jackson (no relation) jumped in with a series of Instagram videos to defend the Eagles star. He also veered into anti-Semitic tropes. “The Jews are the richest. You know who the Rothschilds are?” he said in an exchange on Instagram Live. “… They control all the banks.”