The Conversation DeSean Jackson Needs to Have

I've been thinking about DeSean Jackson’s horribly anti-Semitic Instagram posts.

I’ve read the posts which are obviously terrible. Let’s face it, it’s impossible to excuse or explain away any post that includes a photo of a book page that includes the words: “seek more truth and learn Hitler was right.” 

While one may say, “Well, DeSean didn’t highlight that part of the page,” I would respond, “Doesn’t that part of the page put the whole page in a context that can only be described using language inappropriate for a blog?”

DeSean followed up his post with another one stating “Anyone who feels I have hate towards the Jewish community took my post the wrong way.” Just to drive this point home, he once again included the exact same photo of the exact same page with the exact same line saying “seek more truth and learn Hitler was right.”

Then DeSean  released an apology. He then underscored the sincerity of this apology by liking an Instagram post that said he should not have to apologize.

I respond to this with a quote from the Jewish sages:  “Oy vay.”

I have since seen the discussions/debates of whether DeSean should be fired from the Eagles. I have mixed feelings about this. I have seen people call for his firing because he crossed an unforgivable line. I agree with that. I have also seen people like the Patriots’ Julian Edelman speak out against firing DeSean and to instead take this as an opportunity to visit the Holocaust Museum and the Museum of African American History and Culture and to then have an uncomfortable conversation over lunch. I suppose that conversation would start with Edelman taking a bite of a burger and saying, “DeSean, my man, Hitler was actually not right.” Yes. Uncomfortable.

While that is an absurd ice-breaker, I still feel like there could really be a benefit to treating this as an opportunity for a conversation. I feel that way because DeSean has been an outspoken advocate of civil rights in the context of Black Lives Matter, so perhaps a conversation with Edelman and others could tap into that sense of justice. DeSean himself has since said that Hitler was a bad person who caused terrible pain to the Jewish people.

Even though, as I type this, Captain Obvious is on my shoulder rolling his eyes, this raises another point: while DeSean’s apologies reject what his posted passage says about Hitler, these apologies do not reject that passage’s anti-Semitic tropes about Jews having secret plans for world domination. In fact, when DeSean tried to clarify his intent by reposting the offensive page with what he judged as the bad parts blacked out—the one line he left unredacted said, “The[y] will extort America, their plan for world domination won’t work if the Negroes know who they were.”

So perhaps a conversation with DeSean can include a lesson about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, about how this document was used to propagate lies about the Jewish people—about their secret plans for world domination. And perhaps he can be shown that the claims in this document have long since been proven to be as false as those in the many 18^th and 19^th century “scientific” documents that attempted to build the myth of black inferiority.  And, sadly, he could see how to this day, there are many people who treat these debunked myths as truth to the detriment of Jewish and black people. Then, perhaps he would understand that propagating hurtful myths against any group ultimately hurts all groups.

If such a conversation could impact DeSean, it may also impact all his followers on social media. So whatever happens next, my hope is that it will actually lead to having this conversation.