Jackson's anti-Semitism is so glaring only he cannot recognize it

To understand the absurdity of Stephen Jackson's ignorance and inability to understand his antiSemitism, we have to begin here: Adolf Hitler.

That's where this all started and it can't be forgotten. You can't separate Adolf Hitler from bigotry or genocide. There's no “Hitler did some bad things but he had some good ideas.” Hitler, more so than any figure in history, is synonymous with hate.

Yet when DeSean Jackson, a wide receiver for the Eagles, decided to highlight an anti-Semitic quote attributed to Hitler, Stephen Jackson co-signed and double-downed and revealed himself as, at best, wholly uninformed.

“He's speaking the truth,” Stephen Jackson, the former NBAer turned media personality/activist, said.

First of all, the quote used by DeSean Jackson was fake. It only sounded like Hitler because it cast Jews as trying to “extort America” in their “plan for world domination,” a Hitler-esque sentiment. So here's a real “truth”:

Through propaganda marking Jews as subhuman creatures who were conniving, corrupt, sex-craved and moneydriven, Hitler's Nazi party earned enough support from the public to follow through on exterminating millions — that's right, millions — of Jews. Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi who was responsible for the logistics of the Jewish genocide, testified in 1961 that roughly 4 million Jews were killed in extermination camps and another 2 million were murdered in a variety of other ways.

Women and children were sent into gas chambers for mass execution via asphyxiation. The atrocities were so recent that survivors of these concentration camps can tell you their stories today.

Stephen Jackson would benefit from listening because Wednesday afternoon he regurgitated a well-worn conspiracy theory peddled for centuries and used to justify the Holocaust.

“You just said that Jews aren't the richest,” Jackson told a person on Instagram. “You know who the Rothchilds are? They control all the banks, they own all the banks.”

You can't understate the anti-Semitism and danger attached to that statement. In 1940, the Nazis produced a movie called “The Rothchilds,” with the purpose of stirring up enough Jewish hatred to execute their ethnic cleansing. The Rothchilds were presented by the Nazis as underhanded and conniving by using war to take over Britain. More recently, the Rothchilds were dubiously accused of controlling the federal reserve, a theory pushed by extremists and noted anti-Semite/homophobe Louis Farrakhan.

Jackson, however, doesn't seem to care if he's offensive and he's certainly not going to question Farrakhan.

“I love Minister Farrakhan and ain't nobody is going to change that. Nobody,” Jackson said.

That's disappointing. Jackson has tried to explain his position with qualifiers like “I love Jews” and “I don't support Hitler.” He also said, “I don't know nothing about Hitler,” which is unbelievable and should disqualify all his previous statements on the subject.

To be clear, none of this should detract from the powerful and important work Jackson has done promoting policing reform in the wake of George Floyd's killing. Jackson knew Floyd and has been a leading figure in a worthwhile and momentous movement.