Teachability

So maybe I was wrong. I know, first time for everything.

("I think you misspelled 'first time since five minutes ago'," you're saying)

See, I'm rethinking what I wrote the other day about DeSean Jackson, the Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver who soiled social media with a lot of anti-Semitic excrement, and then was backed up by former NBA player Stephen Jackson (no relation), who soiled social media with more anti-Semitic excrement. I wrote that DeSean's "apology" was inexpressibly lame, and cast serious doubt on his vow to use the episode as a teachable moment to listen harder to and learn more about people from other cultures.

Well. I don't how coachable DeSean Jackson is. But apparently he is indeed teachable.

This upon the news that, last Friday, Jackson participated in a Zoom call with 94-year-old Edward Mosberg, a Holocaust survivor. Mosberg invited Jackson to visit Auschwitz with him. Jackson
 accepted the invitation.

"Thank you, Mr. Mosberg, for your valuable time and insight today," Jackson posted on Instagram, under a screen grab of the two of them. "I'm taking this time to continue educating myself and bridging the gap between different cultures, communities and religions."

"I grew up in Los Angeles, and never really spent time with anyone from the Jewish community and didn't know much about their history," Jackson said on the call, according to the Jerusalem Post. "This has been such a powerful experience for me to learn and educate myself."

To which the Blob says, good on you, DeSean, and my bad. Maybe some good will come out of a profoundly un-good episode. If so, it will be as valuable as reaching out to and trying to understand others always is -- but now in particular, given that the presidential bully pulpit is commanded by a man who glories in demonizing anyone who disagrees with or opposes him.

Not surprisingly, therefore, he's the president of a nation riven now with seemingly irreparable fissures along any number of demographic fault lines. And, yes, some of those are religious lines, which is why anti-Semitism -- which never really goes away -- is on the rise again.

A high-profile professional athlete reaching across those divides?

Couldn't happen at a better time.