Last month, Drew Brees was dragged through the streets of social media for his stance on kneeling during the national anthem. His comments came in the wake of George Floyd losing his life at the hands of Minneapolis cops as one of them kneeled on his neck for over eight minutes.
Fast forward to this month, and those who spoke out against the New Orleans Saints quarterback have remained largely silent when it comes to DeSean Jackson’s anti-Semitic posts on Instagram. The Philadelphia Eagles WR posted quotes falsely attributed to Adolf Hitler and praised noted anti-Semitic preacher Louis Farrakhan.
The passage reads:
“Hitler said, ‘because the white Jews knows [sic] that the Negros are the real Children of Israel and to keep Americas secret the Jews will black mail America.
‘[They] 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.’”
Unlike with Brees, there wasn’t a large assortment of athletes taking to Twitter to call out Jackson like they did with Brees. In fact, Jackson’s Eagles teammates were quick to accept his apology with some retweeting his second statement he posted on Twitter later Tuesday.
This is how social media reacted to the differences:
Click on ‘Follow Us’ and get notified of the most viral NFL stories via Google! Follow Us
Former Eagles president Joe Banner was quick to denounce Jackson’s comments. He tweeted: “If a white player said anything about AA’s as outrageous as what Desean Jackson said about Jews tonight there would at least be a serious conversation about cutting him and a need for a team meeting to discuss. Which would be totally appropriate. Absolutely indefensible.”
The Eagles released a statement on Jackson’s post.
“We have spoken with DeSean Jackson about his social media posts. Regardless of his intentions, the messages he shared were offensive, harmful and absolutely appalling. They have no place in our society, and are not condoned or supported in any way by the organization,” it said. “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. We are continuing to evaluate the circumstances and will take appropriate action. We take these matters very seriously and are committed to continuing to have productive and meaningful conversations with DeSean, as well as all of our players and staff, in order to educate, learn and grow.”
