On November 23, David Maraniss and Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post published a story about Dallas Cowboys owner, president, and general manager Jerry Jones, and his presence at a white rally to prevent the desegregation of North Little Rock High in Little Rock, Arkansas. Jones was a sophomore at the school, and he went to be part of the fracas despite his football coach warning him Jones and his teammates that he “didn’t want to see any of you knot-heads near the front of that school tomorrow.”
But Jones went, and was there. He had never made any public reference to that day in the 65 years since, and certainly never since he took control of the Cowboys in 1989. Of course, when the photo was unearthed, Jones had to respond… to a point.
“That was 65 years ago,” he said. “I had no idea when I walked up there what I was doing, just a reminder to me how to improve and do things the right way,” Jones said.
“I wouldn’t have just dug that up for sure, seriously. I got criticized because I was more interested in how I was going to get punished by my coaches for being out front,
“Nobody there had any idea, frankly, what was going to take place. You didn’t, we didn’t have all the last 70 years of reference and all the things that were going. You didn’t have a reference point there, but still, I’ve got a habit of sticking this nose, right place at the wrong time,”
There was a slight bump in the barometer from this story, but pretty much crickets after that. Maybe there shouldn’t have been. Jones has been a team owner for 33 years, and in that time, he has never hired a Black head coach. Only two of his offensive or defensive coordinators have been Black, and none since 2008.
Jones was recently asked whether, given his high-profile status in the NFL, if his hiring a Black head coach would have a positive effect on other teams doing so, and reversing to a point, the utterly pathetic response the NFL has had to the rising number of talented Black assistants who have already proven their worth in other spots.
“I do. What I’m saying is, I understand that.”
“We are not born equal,” he told Maraniss and Jennings, “Anybody that says we’re equal, well, you’re wrong. … Some of us can talk it better than others. Some of us were better quarterbacks in college. … You got to figure your angle out. Lay awake, figuring it out. If you want it as bad — remember, you’re trying to get something that’s almost impossible to get, one of these jobs — you somehow got to figure the angle out. And that’ll separate the ones that can.”
Joes can say all he wants about the “mischievous gesture” 65 years ago, but if it affects how he sees things now, it’s a global problem. And that’s why we need to keep asking hard questions about it.
Which brings us to LeBron James’ Wednesday night press conference. James asked the media present why he was asked about Kyrie Irving posting a link to a film containing anti-Semitic beliefs, but he was not asked about Jerry Jones.
Lakers' LeBron James ends his post-game press conference about not receiving questions yet about Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and an old photo of him showing he was among white students denying entry to Black students pic.twitter.com/h6z6wbxyuM
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) December 1, 2022
The correct answer, by the way, is not, “LeBron is a basketball player. Why should we care what he thinks of Jerry Jones?” James is one of the highest-profile athletes in the world, and he had said before that Jones’ disapproval over Colin Kaepernick’s protests affected his own Cowboys fandom.
So, it is relevant. It is also relevant in that while James is interested in (and has contributed heavily to) the forwarding of those who have been denied their fair opportunities, it could be said that Jones is not, and has not been, and the proof is in the hiring.
So, when LeBron James why we the media are not asking more about Jerry Jones, we the media should probably take that to heart, and get deeper into what it means that Jones never talked about it, never repudiated it, never talked about how it affected his thoughts on race relations, and treated the entire thing as some sort of nuisance.
It’s more than a nuisance. People being denied opportunity because of the color of their skin, or their nationality, or their sexuality, or their gender status, is discrimination, and no amount of hiding that truth will make it go away.
So, yes. We should be asking more about Jerry Jones, and others who have failed to represent their power with attendant responsibility.
