Via social media (Facebook) and one of our more sensationalist online dailies, we recently learned the story of Kendall Jones, a Texas Tech cheerleader whose penchant for hunting and killing exotic animals for sport has outraged many of those she hoped to impress. The Huffington Post article, headlined “Meet Kendall Jones, The Texan Cheerleader Whose Exotic Animal Hunts Outraged the Internet,” appeared on July 1, 2014. Jones’ Facebook post was probably uploaded around the same time. It is no longer available. Either FB or Jones’ herself removed it from public scrutiny.
This narrative raised a range of issues for me, some of them uncomfortably contradictory.
The story itself, posted proudly by the smiling 19-year-old, goes against everything I believe in. Despite her small physical size, Jones is pictured with a long rifle fitted with a powerful scope. Like many others, she traveled to South Africa’s few remaining hunting grounds, faced off in dramatically unequal pursuit of the animals—all of them exotic, many endangered—made her kills and then had someone photograph her grinning beside the carcasses.
In a caption of her beside a dead elephant, Jones claims she was providing food to nearby villagers “who showed up to take a little protein home,” (implying that they need a young foreigner to feed them). Tens of thousands of this magnificent animal have been poached for ivory or meat, their numbers seriously reduced. In another case, Jones says she only stunned a white rhinoceros so it could be microchipped and receive veterinary attention. One may interpret these images and their descriptions as ignorant, naïve, or reflective of someone desperate for attention.
In reality, they are not that great a stretch from life as a cheerleader, an activity that features (mostly) female allure in support of (mostly) male athletic prowess. How many hundreds of thousands of male big game hunters pay to hunt and kill similar prey? How many mount the heads of those they kill on the walls of their homes and/or make photos of such trophies public? How many in the latter group receive the sort of response Kendell Jones did? The Huffington Post article is followed by 2,244 comments, the vast majority critical of Jones. Before her FB post was taken down, it was said to have received 55,000 hits.
The truth is, our society is rife with violent sporting events that exploit the health of young men, and the young women’s roles that go along with them, so often showcasing females in decorative and supportive positions. This culture begins before birth—with name choices, pink and blue baby attire, and the expectations placed on our children. It is reedited as we grow older through contact sports and hunting, and acquires its full dimension in war. At each stage males and females are encouraged to play prescribed roles. When there is some sort of transgression or crossover, such as in the case of Kendell Jones, this is most often not liberating or even analyzed thoroughly. Its shock value simply succeeds in strengthening the skewed status quo.
I, too, am disgusted by Jones’ idea of fun. But I wonder how many men who responded negatively to this story would have written in like fashion had the story been about a man. It is clear from their comments that many of those put off by Jones’ photos of herself smiling proudly beside a dead lion or leopard are outraged by what they see as incongruity: a young small blond woman proud of her vastly unequal battle with beautiful, endangered and unsuspecting animals.
I am interested in how such twisted values become part of our socialization process, what roles race and gender play in who is permitted these excesses, and when and in whom they are deemed to have crossed some gender-determined line.
One Melanie Ainsworth Nelson, in response to the Huffington Post article, writes of Jones’ exploits: “She has taken Texas Tech’s motto ‘Guns Up’ literally.” That’s often the trouble with mottos: they’re taken literally even when they promote highly questionable behavior that is excused on the grounds that it is just a motto, a saying, a football team’s racist name, or a joke.
Liberaldem writes: “Ten to one this Texas Tech cheerleader claims to be pro-life.” Steven Lowell Smith follows that with: “10,000 to 1.” And a few responses on, Trisha Holmeide addresses Liberaldem’s comment with one of her own: “Ten to one you are all for humans killing their babies, right?” These glib commentators make assumptions about Jones’ position on a woman’s reproductive rights based on their own political points of view and arbitrary connections based on extremely circumstantial evidence—or no evidence at all.
It might be argued that Jones laid herself open to this barrage. Perhaps she did. Certainly she had no idea that the images she posted so proudly would receive such a negative response. But I continue to ponder the larger picture. Another commentator, Eldric Storm, writes: “Hope someone disembowels her.” His tagline shows that he is a high school student. It is precisely this sort of “call and response” that concerns me: how our society’s mainstream socialization not only promotes behavior such as Jones’, but comments on that behavior that show how deeply engrained values of sexism, violence, and stigmatization have become.
We shouldn’t be surprised. When many of our religious leaders, so-called educators, commercial advertisers, and highest political officials promote or applaud violence as an answer to our problems, and racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise hateful speech and activity is considered acceptable, we should not be surprised that a 19-year-old cheerleader from Texas is proud of killing endangered animals and brags about it on social media. We’ve had a vice-president who shot his hunting buddy and was instantly forgiven. We’ve had more elected officials than I could name who have engaged in questionable business or sexual behavior, have lied or weaseled their ways out of conduct that is frankly criminal, and most have been forgiven. Some have even been reelected.
Rather than wallow in the shock value in Jones’ hunting exploits—whether we take her side or rail against her—we should be looking at ourselves and asking in what ways we may be permitting or even reinforcing attitudes and actions that belie our own values. Few of us are immune to having engaged, at some point in our lives, in behaviors we’re now ashamed of. The tendency is to disavow those embarrassments. When you know better, you do better.
But I believe it’s not such a bad idea to own the bad behaviors as well as the good. How else can we show the younger generations that we don’t always come into this world ready-made. Change is possible.
When I was young, I thrilled to the drama of bullfighting. The pageantry and glamor intrigued my still-impressionable mind. I didn’t think about the unequal battle or, if I did, convinced myself that the bull was a ferocious animal and the matador brave and sexy. Today, when I think about that moment in my life, I am horrified and ashamed. Still, I admit to it. Only by looking inside ourselves and understanding how easy it is to succumb to the skewed values that are made so seductive in our society, can we begin to understand how easily disrespect for each other and every other species creeps into our everyday interactions.
My hope for Kendell Jones is that 10 or 20 years from now she will look back at her big game hunting escapades as something she would rather forget—but owns up to because she believes it may help others.
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