Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson has been accused of anti-Semitism for promoting a quote falsely attributed to Adolf Hitler and featuring posts praising Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has an extensive history of making anti-Jewish remarks.
On his Instagram story feed, he posted a quote from the book Jerusalem that is falsely attributed to Hitler:
Hitler said, because the white Jews knows that the Negros are the real Children of Israel and to keep Americas secret the Jews will black mail America.
The will extort America, their pan to world domination won’t work if the Negroes know who they were.
The white citizens of America will be terrified to know that all this time they’ve been mistreating and discriminating and lynching Children of Israel.
Jackson, 33, also shared two posts on Instagram—on Saturday and on Monday—praising Farrakhan, both of which have since been deleted.
One caption read: “This man powerful I hope everyone got a chance to watch this !! Don’t be blinded. Know what’s going on.”
He also shared a quote within a picture attributed to Farrakhan, which stated, “There must be 100% change. ... There’s a burden the Earth is carrying that it must be relieved from. The Earth is burdened by the wicked living on a planet that was made for the righteous.”
Despite the backlash, Jackson defended his posts, saying they were taken “the wrong way.”
“Anyone who feels I have hate towards the Jewish community took my post the wrong way,” he posted on Instagram. “I have no hatred in my heart toward no one!! Equality. Equality.”
The owner of the team, Jeffrey Lurie, and executive vice president and general manager, Howie Roseman, are Jewish. Neither has publicly commented on Jackson’s posts.
Jackson apologized on Tuesday for promoting a quote falsely attributed to Adolf Hitler.
“I post a lot of things that are sent to me. I do not have hatred towards anyone. I really didn’t realize what this passage was saying. Hitler has caused terrible pain to Jewish people like the pain African-Americans have suffered,” wrote Jackson in a caption of a post that includes a video of him apologizing. “We should be together fighting anti-Semitism and racism. This was a mistake to post this and I truly apologize for posting it and sorry for any hurt I have caused.”
In his apology, Jackson did not mention the Farrakhan posts.
Also on Tuesday, the Eagles released a statement posted on the team’s Twitter account.
The team said it has spoken with Jackson about the posts and called them “offensive, harmful and absolutely appalling.”
“They have no place in our society, and are not condoned or supported in any way by the organization,” continued the Eagles. “We are disappointed and we reiterated to DeSean the importance of not only apologizing, but also using his platform to take action to promote unity, equality and respect.”
The team noted that it is “continuing to evaluate the circumstances and will take appropriate action.”
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) July 7, 2020
