Nathan Jones is not new to wearing "offensive costumes"

We wanted to wait until some other news source (are we a news source? yea, probably not) printed the names of the two Penn State students who wore the Virginia Tech Shooting Victim costumes before we did. Some people have written the name of the female costume wearing in our comment section, but until today, the guy who did the interview with WSLS has done a pretty good job of keeping his head down. Today, The Collegian printed the names of both Jessica Maroclo and Nathan Jones on their front page. Here is the interview we did with Jones via e-mail. We have removed the name of the Virginia Tech student who first leaked the photos.

Hamace: I understand that Jessica's picture was distributed by someone that she went to high school with. I also gather that this picture was not intended for public viewing. First of all, is that true? And what is your involvement with that?

Nathan Jones: A girl named Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxx (VT '08) is the person who started this entire controversy. She went to high school with Jess, and was sadly approved to be one of her friends on facebook as a gesture of good will, due to some issues they had in high school. When some of our friends found out about our costumes Jess decided, after much coercion, to put a couple of her pictures up online. They appeared online along with the many others that were already posted by other people at the party. In actuality there were probably somewhere around 10 pictures of us on facebook, that were posted online since Halloween. I have since suppressed them. Although many people had seen them already, nobody complained until this controversy. None of the pictures posted online were approved to be seen by anyone that was not one of our friends, and were not meant to be seen by the public at large.
This is where Xxxxxxx comes in. Once she found the pictures, on Jess' profile, she copied the picture you are all seeing now. You would know who I am if she hadn't cropped me out of the photograph to start her "Jessica Maroclo is a ****ing Bitch" group on facebook. She had finally found a way to get back at someone she has had a vendetta against since high school. It is pretty obvious that she intended only to hurt Jessica, since I was cropped out of the picture and the title of the group makes it pretty clear what her intentions were. She had access to a close up picture of me in my costume that was published right beside the one of us both, but she chose to publish the picture of Jess with me cropped out. So everyone who has shown there support and outrage has been taken advantage of by a spiteful vindictive little girl with a grudge, that knew she could use people's fragile sensibilities to hurt someone for her. I would say it was brilliant, but I doubt even she thought it would have grown beyond her single group, of five to six hundred people, to its current proportion. It is her lack of sensitivity that caused all of this. She would have definitely realized friends and family of the victims would see the pictures, but she only cared about revenge.

ha-mace: There are three main photos that are floating around. One is of Jessica. One is of a guy named Jeff (the picture of the guy standing next to the girl in the devil costume) and a another guy wearing a VT hoodie. But none of them are you. So, what happened to your picture? I haven't seen it. I'ts almost like it doesn't exist. So what happened? Also, are you willing to provide me with that photo?

Jones: Firstly, I am not going to send you any pictures. No good will come from it. Secondly, as I mentioned above you would have seen me already, but I was cropped out. However, the pictures you do have show that this incident is not isolated to Pennsylvania but that it is truly a national occurrence. The people in each of those pictures are from different parts of the country, not to mention the bartender fiasco at Gaswerks in Ohio. Also, how many other people wore the same costume? I am sure there were many more. In response to the obvious rebuttal, “If everyone else does something, does that make it OK?” No it doesn’t, but look at all the tasteless costumes you can find online. So ours struck a chord in a specific group, we’re really no different than all the other people wearing costumes depicting, Jon Benet, Matthew Shepherd, 9/11, Columbine Victims, Aunt Jemima, KKK…etc. Being offensive during Halloween has become a modern tradition, besides, it’s not like I go around insulting Virginia Tech on a regular basis, at least not on purpose. My most offensive behavior is usually expressed the same time each year, like most, during Halloween.

ha-mace: Your Facebook profile says you are a Penn State alum '07. Is that true? If so, you were not a Penn State student at the time of the photo, correct?

Jones: I left school for 14 months to do Cancer and Malaria vaccine research, so I am graduating a year later than I was originally supposed to. I forgot to update that part of my profile. 

ha-mace: Have you been in contact with anyone at Penn State since this story broke?

Jones: I have been asked to meet with Judicial Affairs, but I haven’t had time to yet. I probably will meet with them sometime during this week.

ha-mace: From your interview with WSLS, you said you "push the envelope," and from taking a look at your Facebook, that seems to be true. For those people who are angered by the costumes, can you justify the freedom of expression when compared to their freedom to not be offended?
 
Jones: When one is offended, it is an internal personal reaction based on that person’s perceptions of intent by the offending individual. The problem here is that so many people have taken my display to be a personal attack meant to offend them individually, or to cause harm to others in some way. That was not my intention; I meant to offend at most 10 people at a small private party, who are known to get a kick out of offensive costumes. I could have very easily worn the costume to any of the many costume contests held at local bars. If I really wanted to maximize my offensiveness, appearing in front of hundreds of people at various contests would certainly helped to “push the envelope” as far as possible. Haven’t we all done ridiculously stupid and offensive things in front of our friends? Things we would not do in front of, or for the general public?
Sure people have the “freedom” to be offended. Being offended is a feeling, people are free to feel however they like, but how they act on their feelings is up to them. If anything, their own freedom to express themselves becomes suspended when their expression, in the form of violent threats, turns into a means to harm another. Everyone is free to feel offended, and to express those feelings in a non-harmful/violent way, but this is not what I am seeing. This event has shown that in this country there is a general cultural zeitgeist of underdeveloped morality and eye-for-an-eye justice; or in my case, a whole-body-for-an-eye justice, as the retribution demanded is far greater than the crime itself. Apparently, we still teach our children that when someone hurts us we should seek them out and punish them to our heart’s content. That is not justice and our freedoms were not designed to satisfy such immature world views. It is this type of immature, yet popular, world view that leads people to lash out at their fellow man, to right their own perceived wrongs. It is an underdeveloped sense of morality and justice that creates the shooters, the bombers, and the murderers in this world. It is time for people to take control of their emotions and to observe and respond to the world with more objective eyes, and hearts. Your feelings do not give your actions validation; they should not be used as excuses, but should be channeled into more constructive venues, toward a greater understanding for all involved. I may be callous, and I may be the most “arrogant **** alive”, but people should be trying to teach me to understand their point of view, so that I might see things from their perspective and truly understand how I have wronged them. If this were to happen we would all benefit. The offended would get some form of closure and I would become a better, or at the least a more sensitive, person.

ha-mace: This story has gained national attention since it broke Thursday night. Have you been contacted by any other members of the media to do interviews? Which ones?

Jones: With all of the other terrible things going on in our country, right now, the media doesn’t give a damn about some kids in tasteless costumes, and how they inadvertently offended a few thousand people. Aside from local news here and in Virginia none of the major media outlets care, they are too busy covering the war, the election candidates, and all of the shootings happening everywhere. However, our story has shown up in the CNN news ticker, The Washington Post, US News and World Reports (unconfirmed), and many others. It even spread across the pond to the UK. 

Jones: I am remorseful and saddened by a few things:
First, that the friends and families of the victims had to be exposed to the pictures and their still recovering memories reopened to the horrors that happened last April. Nobody should be forced to relive something so terrible. I never intended to put them through the pain they must be experiencing. I am truly sorry that things turned out the way they did, and for the part I played, however unintended, in their current sorrows. Their torment will weigh heavily on my mind for years to come.

Note: This is a much different response than he gave The Collegian where he said he would "never ever ever" apologize.

Second, I wish people would raise this much awareness and outrage about human trafficking and slavery here and abroad, scientific funding from our government, child labor, education in faith based schools, woman’s rights, racism, the environment, the Neo-Con Iran agenda, or hell, I’d even settle for everyone, who joined those facebook hate groups, using fair trade coffee.
Honor the VT victims by remembering the past and how you felt, but don’t loose sight of what is important today and in our future.

More to come later.