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‘Farrakhan Is My Teacher’: Fox Sports’s Shannon Sharpe And Showtime’s Stephen Jackson Have Ties To Nation Of Islam Leader
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- Former NFL player Shannon Sharpe and former NBA player Stephen Jackson both have ties to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, a notorious anti-Semite.
- Sharpe and Jackson have both faced scrutiny for their responses to NFL wide receiver DeSean Jackson’s anti-Semitic comments.
- Stephen Jackson has praised Farrakhan as “my leader” and both he and Sharpe have defended Farrakhan against charges of anti-Semitism.
Former NFL player and current Fox Sports analyst Shannon Sharpe and former NBA player and Showtime podcast host Stephen Jackson both have ties to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, a notorious anti-Semite.
Farrakhan has described Jews as “satanic,” railed against interracial marriage — which he claimed “mongrelized” the black race — and has said “Hitler was a very great man.” Sharpe and Stephen Jackson have both faced criticism for their responses to Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson’s promotion of Farrakhan and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories online.
Among the material that DeSean Jackson spread to his 1.1 million followers on Instagram was a fake quote attributed to Adolf Hitler claiming that Jews are deceiving America from finding out that black people are “the real Children of Israel.”
Stephen Jackson said Wednesday that DeSean Jackson had told “the truth” by spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories: “He’s speaking the truth. You know he don’t hate nobody, but he’s speaking the truth of the facts that he knows and trying to educate others.”
The former NBA player has repeatedly promoted Farrakhan to his nearly 900,000 Instagram followers.
Jackson promoted Farrakhan’s Independence Day speech where the Nation of Islam leader accused Dr. Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates of trying to “depopulate the Earth” through the development of a coronavirus vaccine.
“I will be there front and center. Nobody loves black people more and nobody has more knowledge about the things we need to be liberated. [Farrakhan] is educating me on how to be a great leader and how to develop the community,” Jackson wrote in a July 3 Instagram post.
Jackson posted an Instagram photo of himself and Farrakhan on June 22 and later uploaded two videos defending the Nation of Islam leader.
“I love Minister Farrakhan and I learned so much in those two hours and I never heard him preach hate, or talk to hate, say hate about anybody to me,” Jackson said in a June 25 video.
“Minister Farrakhan is my teacher. He’s embraced me and he’s teaching me a lot about my people and how to be a better leader,” he added in a second video, on June 27.
Showtime executive Chris DeBlasio told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an email: “We are aware of Stephen Jackson’s recent statements. Regardless of his intentions, Stephen’s comments were hurtful and inconsistent with the values espoused by this network.”
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Sharpe faced scrutiny after dismissing DeSean Jackson’s promotion of Farrakhan on Wednesday.
“He’s [Farrakhan] has made it pretty clear over the years that he doesn’t like Jewish people. Is that fair to say?” Fox Sports host Skip Bayless asked Sharpe on Wednesday.
“Well, not from the conversation that I’ve had with the minister — he’s made it clear to anybody that sat down with him, he says he doesn’t,” Sharpe replied.
Sharpe previously brought up his ties to Farrakhan during a September 2018 episode of “The Undefeated,” the Fox Sports show that he and Bayless host together.
Sharpe said he was going to be “passing out the Final Call,” the Nation of Islam’s newspaper. “Me and Louis Farrakhan, the last of a dying breed,” Sharpe said, before pointing to his head and saying he had the same hair part as Farrakhan.
Sharpe’s comments were highlighted by a pro-Farrakhan Facebook page in January.
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Fox Sports didn’t return an email seeking comment.
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