I'm not of the opinion that we all need to disclose everything all the time.
Everybody makes mistakes. And most of us evolve. I think about some things differently than I did 10 or 20 or 50 years ago, because I've had experiences and done a lot of thinking in that time. Some things I took for granted when I was a kid might horrify me now. If you're an optimist, you probably believe that the arc of the universe bends toward justice; that the longer we persist the better shot we have at achieving a good society.
I'm not sure I'm an optimist; I just don't want to spoil the party. (My feeling is that human nature is what it is, and all that science and technology really does is lubricate our slide toward self-destruction. But I'd like to stick around to see who the next James Bond will be and how this 12-team college football playoff will work out.)
It is our nature to be selfish. As preachers tell us, we are sinful creatures. We do the wrong thing, sometimes on purpose. Most of the time, we probably get away with this--and most of us feel at least a little bit bad about those unpunished transgressions. (I still think about mean things I said in high school.)
People ought to be accountable for their actions. But you don't have to advertise your past mistakes. And there ought to be a statute of limitations on most offenses. Just because you did something rude or hateful when you were a kid doesn't mean you can't be a good person in the here and now. Every fresh moment presents us with the chance to be better.
So I don't care what Jerry Jones was doing when he was 14 years old.
I find it interesting that he was where he was, standing behind a group of older kids attempting to deny entrance to North Little Rock High to six Black students on Sept. 9, 1957. I think that photograph is deeply interesting and tells a story about America that a lot of us aren't willing to hear. I'm glad it has surfaced, because it gives us occasion to talk about uncomfortable truths.
But it's a snapshot, not an MRI of anyone's soul. Jones says he was there as a curious onlooker, not as a thug. In the mob, but not of the mob. Like a lot of the people who were in the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, would probably say. They were just milling around. Watching history unfold.
They didn't mean to get caught up on the wrong side of it.
No one can prove Jerry Jones is lying; any normal human being, confronted with such a photograph 65 years after the fact, would have trouble explaining exactly what they were thinking when they were 14 years old.
I don't know Jerry Jones, but feel like I do. In part, this is because I'm living at a time when it is common for people to have one-sided relationships with people they've never met because cameras and microphones are ubiquitous and stuck in the faces of the colorful rich at every opportunity.
And Jerry Jones has never met a camera or microphone that he didn't want to invite to his suite at the Omni Frisco to check out his Super Bowl rings. He is promiscuous with the cameras and microphones, and that's why people love or hate him and care about what he was doing as a mush-brained 14-year-old.
But I also feel I know Jerry Jones because he is a like a lot of silent generation Southern American white men I know; his background isn't dissimilar to a lot of my relatives. Some of my uncles could have been there in the doorway, right alongside that dark-haired guy in the striped shirt with that oh-so-cool heater sticking out his mouth. One of them might have been the kid laughing over that guy's right shoulder. Or the one grimacing over his left.
I know those people. I recognize the haircuts. For better and worse, those are my people.
Those boys might still be alive. And even if they're not, somebody out there remembers them. Somebody recognizes their faces. They probably taught their kids to drive. They have stories too. I wonder if any of them are embarrassed about the resurfacing of the photograph.
I'd guess they probably are. They're probably ashamed. They were kids. At least some of them evolved.
Sometimes we act like what we call the civil rights era was a long time ago. I suspect that if we make it another century or two, future American historians will see the end of World War II as the beginning of a period when minority groups began to demand that America live up to the promises made at her founding.
Lots of people are still fighting to be treated with dignity and respect. We remain in that struggle, and every day you get a chance to decide what side of history you want to be on. Some people understand you can't take anything for granted.
Other people wish we could go back to Mayberry, which makes about as much sense as wishing you go could go back to Middle-Earth and live in the Shire with the hobbits and those bloody elves, but there you have it.
Looking at that photograph, don't those old boys look like extras from "The Andy Griffith Show?" Maybe like rowdy kids that Sheriff Taylor would have to sit down and have a talk with so they could grow up and be respectful human beings with a capacity for empathy and not hateful bigots. And maybe in that episode they'd put Opie Taylor in the place that young Jerry Jones now occupies. (Sorry Jerry, you got a face made for microphones. Go make $1 billion and maybe the cameras will like you better.)
After Andy had admonished the older boys and got them all to pledge to be good citizens who'd grow up to root for Tony Dorsett and Michael Irvin, maybe he'd turn to Opie and say "Son, you learn anything from all this?" And Opie would hang his head and say, "Yes, Pa."
Andy would smile at him and say, "Well, since you've learned your lesson, I reckon we don't have to tell your Aunt Bee about you being in the proximity of this ugly racial incident."
I'm not saying we shouldn't be concerned with bad things that happened 65 years ago. We should be more concerned with what will happen tomorrow.