Pats' Edelman hopes Jackson posts serve as teaching moment

New England Patriots receiver Julian Edelman said he hopes recent anti-Semitic social media posts by Philadelphia Eagles receiver DeSean Jackson can be a teaching moment, t just for him but ors as well.

In a video posted to Instagram on Thursday, Edelman joined Eagles, NFL and ors who have condemned Jackson’s posts over weekend in which he shared a screenshot of a quote widely attributed to Adolf Hitler, saying in part: “Jews will blackmail America.”

Jackson apologized for posts in a video on Tuesday, saying in part that y weren’t intended to demean Jewish community and that he “never should have posted anything Hitler did, because Hitler was a bad person, and I kw that.”

Edelman said Thursday that he waited to respond to Jackson’s initial post because of complexity of issue. MVP of 2019 Super Bowl ted that he has communicated in past with Jackson over social media and said he has “thing but respect for his game” on field.

“I kw he said some ugly things, but I do see an opportunity to have a conversation,” Edelman said in video. “I’m proud of my Jewish herit and for me it’s t just about religion, it’s about community and culture as well. … re’s room for anti-Semitism in this world.”

Edelman ackwledged that he didn’t identify as Jewish until later in life, but he has since learned how destructive anti-Semitism can be.

“Whenever I encountered hatred, it never really felt like it was aimed at me,” he said. “It was only after I was part of this community that I learned how destructive hate is.”

But this isn’t first time Edelman has spoken out about anti-Semitic incidents.

Following shooting massacre at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in vember 2018 that killed 11 people and injured six ors, Edelman wore an Israeli baseball cap in his postgame interviews after a Patriots’ win over Green Bay to show solidarity.

Edelman later ackwledged in an interview with Associated Press that he has heard anti-Semitic taunts during games.

“A lot of guys have got to deal with a lot of stuff when it comes to name calling,” he said. “You get so wrapped up in football and your assignment that you brush stuff off and don’t let it get to you. ... You take high road, and you go from re.”

Edelman closed his more than 2-minute video by saying that while he was talking about anti-Semitism on Thursday, he didn’t want to distract from country’s conversation on race and importance of Black Lives Matter movement, which he said was challenging everyone to have “uncomfortable conversations."

“It’s really hard to see challenges a community can face when you’re t part of it,” he said. “So what we need to do is we need to listen, we need to learn and we need to act if we’re gonna have real change.”

To that end, he offered to accompany Jackson to United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and promised to attend National Museum of African-American History and Culture with Jackson in return.

“Afterwards, we grab some burgers and we have those uncomfortable conversations,” Edelman said.

Im credits: AP