Larry Alphonso Johnson Jr., former NFL running back for the Kansas City Chiefs, is the latest American athlete to jump on the antisemitic bandwagon. Johnson's bigoted and violent behavior, however, is nothing new and spans over a decade.
In 2009, the Chiefs suspended Johnson for his tweets that involved the use of anti-gay slurs. Between 2008 and 2012, Johnson was arrested several times for battery against women, including choking an ex-girlfriend into consciousness.
Johnson’s Jew-hatred runs deep. He is a fanboy of our previous Antisemite of the Week Louis Farrakhan — the leader of the antisemitic movement, the Nation of Islam. Last March, Johnson referred to the Hip Hop world as a "Jewish Plantation", insinuating that Jews in the music industry use African American artists as slaves.
In 2019, Johnson outrageously proclaimed that the Jewish people are fake, “Khazar Jews”, who have no connection to the land of Israel and the Sephardic Jews. This horrific antisemitic conspiracy is often propagated by radical Muslims, the Palestinian Authority, the alt-right movement, Nation of Islam leaders, and embraced by radical Black Hebrew Israelites.
When fellow NFL player Desean Jackson shared a series of antisemitic Instagram posts last week, Larry Johnson not only defended his behavior but amplified Jackson's bigoted and untrue rhetoric. Johnson further claimed that antisemitism is a lie invented by Jews.
He continued his antisemitic twitter rant by tweeting a fabricated quote that alleges Jews are "the devil’s people".
Johnson used nearly every antisemitic trope in the antisemitic playbook. He even expressed Holocaust denial, suggesting that the death of a young child deported to a Nazi concentration camp is also a lie.
Larry Johnson’s bigoted behavior is dangerous. There is no excuse for inciting hatred, and Twitter needs to take responsibility for its platform. Click here to report Johnson's Twitter account.