"Inside the NBA" Should Have Discussed DeSean Jackson's Comments and the Farrakhan Issue
It was great to see the original "Inside the NBA" crew tonight. "Inside the NBA" is probably the greatest sports studio show ever, providing a deft combination of intelligence and humor while covering a broad range of topics beyond who won and who lost. "Inside the NBA" has a long track record of thoughtfully discussing a wide variety of issues.The high standard long set by "Inside the NBA" is why I am disappointed that tonight's episode ignored recent pro-Louis Farrakhan statements made by several high profile people, including Ice Cube, DeSean Jackson and Stephen Jackson.
Ice Cube has been a guest on "Inside the NBA" and he collaborated with Kenny Smith for a Kobe Bryant tribute aired by TNT. DeSean Jackson is an NFL player, but "Inside the NBA" discussed at length comments recently made by NFL player Drew Brees. Stephen Jackson is an NBA champion and a prominent sports media personality.
Ice Cube tweeted, "The Honorable Louis Farrakhan continues to warn America to this very second and he's labeled one of your 'evil names' and you turn your ears off. Why is the truth so offensive that you can't stand to hear it?"
DeSean Jackson tweeted with approval a quote that he (incorrectly) attributed to Adolf Hitler stating that Jews "will blackmail America" and Jackson also tweeted his support for Louis Farrakhan.
Stephen Jackson reacted to DeSean Jackson's tweet by repeating the classic antisemitic trope that Jews run all of the banks: "You know who the Rothschilds are? They own all the banks...I haven't said one thing that's untrue yet." Stephen Jackson also said, "I'm a fan of Minister Farrakhan because nobody loves Black people more than him. He hasn't told me to hate somebody one time. He's teaching me how to be a leader. Just because you don't like him, doesn't mean I'm gonna not like him."
It never should be acceptable to promote hatred, and one would hope that in today's climate any kind of hatred would be deemed unacceptable. Perhaps you are not familiar with Louis Farrakhan; perhaps you agree with Chuck D, the front man for Public Enemy--unquestionably one of the greatest rap groups ever--who once sang, "The follower of Farrakhan/Don't tell me that you understand/Until you hear the man."
Fair enough. Let's hear the man. Here is Louis Farrakhan in his own words:
"The Jews, a small handful, control the movement of this great nation,
like a radar controls the movement of a great ship in the waters...The
Jews got a stranglehold on the Congress." February 25, 1990 speech.
"I think Hillary Rodham Clinton is a part of, if you trace her lineage,
she go right back to the Rothschilds. Her daughter is about to marry a
Jewish young man. This is no accident." July 11, 2010 speech.
"How did we get a Black president? Because those Satanic Jews know that
this is the time of your separation from them that God wants to give you
a land of your own as the cornerstone of the Kingdom of God. You didn't
see when they got in the room and said 'we have to deceive them and
through them deceive the entire world.' How could they be the chosen of
God and leading the world into filth and indecency?" October 3, 2010 speech.
"The Satanic Jews that control everything and mostly everybody, if they are your enemy, then you must be somebody." March 2, 2014 speech.
"[Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul] Wolfowitz, so-called
Jew, but a member of the Synagogue of Satan...Satan is a human being
without human characteristics. That's why the revelator called them
beasts in human form. These are people sitting in the Pentagon, planning
the destruction of Muslim nations...Wolfowitz had 10 years now, to plan
how they're gonna clean out the Middle East and take over those Muslim
nations. They needed another Pearl Harbor. They needed some event that
was cataclysmic, that would make the American people rise up, ready for
war...they plotted a false flag operation and when a government is so
rotten that they will kill innocent people to accomplish a political
objective, you are not dealing with a human. You're dealing with Satan
himself, the Synagogue of Satan...you're dealing with Satan himself, the
Synagogue of Satan...Now they got into the Bush administration and on 9/11
the Twin Towers went down...George Bush, and those devils, Satans around
him. They plotted 9/11. Ain't no Muslim took control of no plane." February 28, 2016 speech.
"I'm not an anti-Semite. I’m anti-Termite." Oct. 16, 2018 tweet.
During a July 4, 2020 speech, Farrakhan not only repeated the same kind of antisemitic hatred quoted above, but he also asserted that COVID-19 positive tests are rising in Florida now because he personally instructed Allah to afflict Florida. Farrakhan said that he did this to punish Florida for the U.S. embargo against Cuba, and Farrakhan claimed that Cuban doctors have a cure for COVID-19 that the U.S. government is suppressing because the U.S. government is using COVID-19 to kill Black people. That speech is available on YouTube, in clear violation of YouTube's policies against disseminating hate speech.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) summarizes Farrakhan's views: "Louis Farrakhan heads the Nation of Islam,
a group he has led since 1977 and that is based on a somewhat bizarre
and fundamentally anti-white theology. Farrakhan is an antisemite who
routinely accuses Jews of manipulating the U.S. government and
controlling the levers of world power."
Farrakhan’s antisemitism has earned him some strange allies. Former Klan and White Aryan Resistance leader Tom Metzger was so impressed with Farrakhan's anti-Semitic bombast that he donated $100 to NOI after attending a Farrakhan rally in Los Angeles in September 1985. Given that white supremacists share NOI’s belief in separation of the races, a month later, Metzger and 200 other white supremacists from the United States and Canada gathered on a farm about 50 miles west of Detroit, where they pledged their support for the Nation of Islam.
Antisemitism is only one of Farrakhan's many prejudices. Over the years, his comments have consistently been rabidly anti-gay. "God don't like men coming to men with lust in their hearts like you should go to a female," he told a Kansas City crowd in 1996. "If you think that the kingdom of God is going to be filled up with that kind of degenerate crap, you're out of your damn mind."
The SPLC describes the Nation of Islam as a hate group: "Since its founding in 1930, the Nation of Islam (NOI) has grown into one
of the wealthiest and best-known organizations in black America. Its
theology of innate black superiority over whites and the deeply racist,
antisemitic and anti-LGBT rhetoric of its leaders have earned the NOI a
prominent position in the ranks of organized hate."
Therefore, Ice Cube, DeSean Jackson, Stephen Jackson, and others are publicly aligning themselves with a man whose statements and beliefs are unequivocally racist, antisemitic, homophobic, and anti-American (and sometimes just bizarre, such as his remarks about instructing Allah to afflict Florida with COVID-19).
Imagine if a prominent white entertainer, a white NFL player or a white retired NBA player stated that he supports David Duke or that David Duke speaks the truth or that David Duke is teaching him how to be a leader? Do you think that "Inside the NBA" would ignore that?
Imagine if a prominent white entertainer, a white NFL player or a white retired NBA player stated that he supports David Duke or that David Duke speaks the truth or that David Duke is teaching him how to be a leader? Do you think that "Inside the NBA" would ignore that?
I have often criticized Mike Wilbon for his basketball analysis, but I will give him credit for addressing directly and unequivocally the comments made by Stephen Jackson. On "Pardon the Interruption" Wilbon declared, "This is not tolerable...It undermines everything Stephen Jackson said so eloquently on behalf of Black Lives Matter. He has no credibility now. He has undermined his own previous good work with this garbage. And it's garbage. I know Stephen Jackson. I like him. If I was sitting with him now--I have worked with him--I would say, 'Stephen, stop! You're wrong. You're not speaking any truth. You're going to have to become more familiar with the truth via history. Let's read some. We'll read it together. This is insane. You are ruining weeks of actually trying to appeal to people on one level and then bringing your own bigotry and prejudice in at a time when no one can afford to say that, to have that, to entertain it.'"
Wilbon is right. It is a shame that Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley, and Shaquille O'Neal did not step up and deliver a similar message. For that matter, where are NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell?
Louis Farrakhan has spent decades making it very clear who he is and what he believes. The time has past for the sports figures, celebrities, politicians, and public figures who have invoked his name to make it clear who they are and what they believe.
Labels: Charles Barkley, DeSean Jackson, Ernie Johnson, Ice Cube, Inside the NBA, Julian Edelman, Kenny Smith, Louis Farrakhan, Mike Wilbon, Ray Allen, Shaquille O'Neal, Stephen Jackson
posted by David Friedman @ 11:56 PM
