This hasn’t made much news outside of the NBA/NFL world but…
Earlier in the week, Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson approvingly posted a quote from a book he was reading which was attributed to Adolf Hitler. The quote, which is inauthentic, alleges that white Jews have suppressed the truth of Black Hebrew Israelism and will extort America to further their goal of global domination. He has since apologized for the post, claiming he was misunderstood and, “My intention was to uplift, unite and encourage our culture with positivity and light.” Responding to the critcism of Jackson’s post, another Eagles wide receiver, Marquis Goodwin, posted, “I wish people commented this much on a BLM topic.”
All of these players have gone to college; all of them are millionaires. None of them have been penalized besides tsk-tsk statements. All have retained their jobs on and off the court and the only non-Jewish athlete to come out against any of this is Enes Kanter. Commentators, Owners and GMs don’t give a shit either. What the fuck?
Farakhaan is a douche and professional athletes aren’t exactly on the up and up with politics and society. (See Roger Clemens) DeSean is also a WR, who are the largest egomaniacs on an NFL team.
I live in Philly, so this has been on the local news a few times today.
Before Covid, you could find the Black Israelites preaching with a megaphone near the Maket Frankord terminal. I find them hillarious but try not to engage with them. Once, I was defending myself when one talked about me on the El. He said “How can you call yourself a Jew? You don’t even believe in Jesus!”
One of the few Jews in the NFL posted a video challenging Desean to accompany him to both the National Holocaust Museum and the African American History Museum.
The NFL has been known to overlook all kinds of things. OTTOMH, Michael Vick was involved in a dog fighting ring. The general consensus among Eagles fans was ‘as long as he wins games, we don’t care.’. IIRC For a long time, the NFL also ignored numerous cases of domestic abuse.
“I was eating breakfast one morning and it just happened,’’ Schwartz said. “I was told that if I wanted to be saved, I needed to convert and if I didn’t, I was going to hell. Then he made mention my son was going to hell and the conversation ended and I went on with my day.’’
He goes on:
“With Black Lives Matter, a lot of players who aren’t black agree with the movement and are supportive of the movement. There’s just not a lot of Jewish players. I’m not surprised no one stood up for the Jewish people about these comments. That doesn’t really outrage me, though. I’m like ‘All right, I didn’t expect anyone to stand up for Jewish people.’ ’’
I don’t know whether it’s Trump, COVID-19, global warming, flouride in the water or some unholy combination of factors, but the level of craziness in this country seems to be rising exponentially.
“Woodwork squeaks and out come the freaks”, as some Was (or not) once said.
I think it may be a factor, though. Jews are only about 2% of the US population. Although there are a few areas where they are relatively common in others, such as the NFL, they are nearly non-existant. Probably aren’t a lot of Hmong players in the NFL, either, or Romani.
So a good number of the players probably don’t know any Jews in any meaningful way and don’t know much about them. In those circumstances it’s not hard to pick up misinformation.
What I am saying to you is that 3 of the players I mentioned in the OP belong to a team with a Jewish owner and general manager. They know and work with Jews. So how many Jews should a college educated adult know before giving them the benefit of the doubt on that grand conspiracy and global domination thing?
Perhaps the owner and GM just sit around laughing at the guy and then say to themselves - doesn’t matter what that moron says, we still own and GM the team?
What baffles me is that DeSean (or anyone) could have mistaken this for a genuine Hitler quote to begin with. It doesn’t sound remotely like something Hitler would write or say. Not that I’m exactly familiar with Hitler’s words, but still.
These guys don’t get paid for their critical thinking skills and erudition. They get paid to run into each other and absorb the impact with their heads. They’ve been doing this since a very young age. That’s gotta take its toll even on the smart ones. Hopefully he’ll learn from Maya Angelou instead of Farrakhan – Now that he knows better, he’ll do better.
Oh, sorry - not a follower of NFL so that was totally non-obvious to me. With that info, yeah, it does seem more than a little faux pas on the part of the offending player. It could still be a matter of thick-headed ignorance.
Quite a bit depends on knowing the people involved. I’ve continually met adults in my life with the oddest notions of what “Jewish” is or means. Some people can be educated, some not.
I hasten to distinguish “Black Hebrews” from Beta Israel, also known as “Ethiopian Jews”. Black Hebrews are a sect of African-Americans that bear about as much relationship to Judaism as Jews for Jesus do, or Farakhan’s Nation of Islam does to actual Islam. Beta Israel are actual Jews, accepted as such in Israel and by most other Jews around the world.
So while there are black Jews, Black Hebrews are not considered Jewish by the global Jewish community.