DeSean Jackson Apologizes For Offensive 'Hitler' Posts; What's Next?

Philadelphia Eagles Star DeSean Jackson Is Apologizing For Offensive 'Hitler' Posts And No, We Never Saw This Coming

DALLAS - It speaks to my naivete, I am embarrassed to admit: Amid the national debate featuring hot-button verbiage ranging from "Stick to Sports'' to "Kaepernick'' to "Trump'' to "Black Lives Matter'' to "Civil Right Movement,'' I never, ever envisioned an NFL player flexing with the hottest-button phrase in the modern history of humankind:

"Adolf Hitler.''

It feels preposterous to even type this, but here we are: Philadelphia Eagles receiver DeSean Jackson is apologizing for an offensively inane online rant, now saying, “Hitler was a bad person and I know that ... People that know me know I have no hatred in my heart.”

And yet people are now armed with a heightened awareness of whatever is in Jackson's heart and head due to his Monday posting on social media an anti-Semitic message that he attributed to the infamous Nazi leader Hitler.

On his Instagram story feed, Jackson attributed a quote to Hitler that said white Jews "will blackmail America. (They) will extort America, their plan for world domination won't work if the Negroes know who they were."

The Eagles on Tuesday responded by calling Jackson's posts "offensive, harmful and absolutely appalling" and said the team would take "appropriate action."

Up until recently, NFL teams (including maybe-evolving Jerry Jones' Dallas Cowboys) grappled with what is the "appropriate action'' to "punish'' a player who opts to kneel for the national anthem in protest of social inequities. Ah, those were simpler times.

Now the NFL has to deal with a guy who - seemingly due to his own ignorance - expresses himself as seeming "pro-Hitler''?

"We take these matters very seriously,'' the Eagles said, "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."

Lovely, but ... We have a problem. We attempt gently (or sometimes violently) to guide ourselves out of ignorance and bring enlightenment. At the same time, in most cases, crushing without mercy "hate speech.''

But DeSean Jackson just threw civility a curveball. 

Decades ago, the world's psyche opted to frame Hitler as being both the embodiment of evil and a cartoonish buffoon. The former concept was designed to prevent mankind from repeating a horrendous error. The latter concept? I suppose it was and is gallows humor, designed to suck the power from Nazism.

But DeSean Jackson's heinous gaffe will not be laughed off here. There will be ramifications, and should be. But in what form, I cannot say. Because I gotta tell you, I never envisioned the world having to deal with the following verbiage: 

"A veteran African-American NFL standout who espouses the 'wisdom' of Adolf Hitler.''