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Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson found himself in some hot water after sharing an anti-semitic quote attributed to Adolf Hitler on his Instagram story over the 4th of July weekend.
The 33-year-old wide receiver shared a fake quote in which Hitler supposedly says he would start World War III to stop white Jews in America from oppressing the Black community.
Hey @jeff_lurie and @HowieRoseman – you guys cool with your wide receiver (Desean Jackson) quoting Hitler and proclaiming he was right? pic.twitter.com/ufCvDG3VaO
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) July 6, 2020
The quote was debunked back by Snopes in 2017.
Via Snopes
This passage is frequently shared in defense of Hitler to bolster the argument that he was actually not racist, and, in fact, that he believed black people were the “true Hebrews”. The first iteration of this text we could uncover was published on a clickbait web site called FMLGoneViral.com on 7 July 2015:
The rumor that Adolf Hitler said that World War III would begin when the United States realized that black people were the “true Hebrews” originated in an unsourced article published by a disreputable web site, and which appears to loosely string together an entire ecosystem of impossibly farfetched and completely unsourced conspiracy theories. Although the quote in the meme was attributed to a legitimate publication, the briefest and most cursory research shows that it appears nowhere in the book cited.
When called out over the quote, Jackson said he had no hate in his heart but went on to post another quote that states Jews are “looking to extort America for World domination.”
DeSean Jackson, posts a quote from Hitler, says he’s not anti-Semitic and then highlights the particularly anti-Semitic part.
As an Eagles fan, this is disgusting. Where is the response from the team and the NFL? pic.twitter.com/MFPmz0PyOY
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) July 7, 2020
Did not want to tweet this, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let it slide:
As a Jewish man and an Eagles fan, I am unfathomably appalled at what I saw on DeSean Jackson’s Instagram story today.
What pushes a person to read, digest, and POST that, I’ll never know.
Despicable.
— Alex Carr (@AlexCarrMLB) July 7, 2020
On Tuesday the Eagles released a statement and said they had spoken to Jackson about the posts but were “continuing to evaluate the circumstances”.
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) July 7, 2020
The Eagles statement received plenty of criticism from Jewish Eagles fans who want to see Jackson punished for sharing the insensitive social media posts.
https://twitter.com/ashleyblair21/status/1280532051389820928
Translation…. If the media keeps ignoring this story we won’t cut DeSean. This coming from an Owner & GM that are Jewish.
Imagine the level @Eagles would go to protect DeSean if he were actually still good?
Shameful. https://t.co/CPbfSOcv4X
— Chad Forbes (@NFLDraftBites) July 7, 2020
“We are continuing to evaluate the situation” = we don’t want to do anything here except this one statement many hours late but if there’s enough public pressure I guess we will have to. But we really need a reliable deep threat so, uh, did we mention we are disappointed? https://t.co/9ckpdC4Our
— Matthew Berry (@MatthewBerryTMR) July 7, 2020
Update: Jackson has apologized for the posts.
https://twitter.com/MySportsUpdate/status/1280531718240419842