Today is the one-year anniversary of the brutal killing of Jordan Neely, who was choked to death by Daniel Penny on a NY subway train on 1 May 2023.
Neely was begging for food and was agitated. He was unarmed. Nonetheless, large sections of White America, and others, argue he was a danger. People, however, have described Neely’s horrific killing as a lynching, and with good reason.
Apologists for the killer, Daniel Penny, have suggested the trained marine was performing a public service by killing an unarmed Black man. The latter supports the argument for the former: America has always placed little value on Black lives while the lynching of Black people has been a feature of American culture since the founding of the country. So right from the start let me be clear: if Jordan Neely was White he’d still be alive and if Daniel Penny was Black he’d already be behind bars.
As it stands, Jordan Neely is dead, and Daniel Penny faces manslaughter charges for which he likely faces months in prison – even if found guilty – and he may well yet be found innocent. Daniel Penny’s light charge reflects the same benefit of the doubt routinely given to rogue police officers who kill Black people. All too often, those officers simply claim they feared for their lives, suspected the victim had a weapon – even if the Black victim was unarmed – and those officers literally get away with murder.
“If Jordan Neely was White he’d still be alive and if Daniel Penny was Black he’d already be behind bars”
We’ve seen this play out many times. The lethal threat is treated and framed as the victim, and significant media platforms help this process. And this is what has happened in the aftermath of Daniel Penny murdering Jordan Neely.
The dynamics of this case speak to America’s brutal history and how this correlates directly to the present. The moment Jordan Neely encountered Daniel Penny he never stood a chance. He was Black, male, hungry, homeless and mentally ill. This is as vulnerable as it’s possible to be in the United States.
Daniel Penny, however, is a White male former Marine, trained in the very expert force he consciously used to kill Jordan Neely. Yet he claims he didn’t mean to. Absurd when we realize that the average person knows that choking someone after they are no longer moving is deadly. In fact, a member of the public on the subway even warned Daniel Penny that he might kill Neely.
But I think Penny knew what he was doing – that’s why he did it. He acted as he did because he knew he was operating within a power and legal structure, founded on White vigilantism, that rewards and protects it and which was constructed to protect Whiteness. Had this not been the case, I doubt he’d have attacked Jordan Neely.
Had Neely been a White man exhibiting the same behavior and language, I believe that Penny might not have touched him. Perhaps he’d have spared him some change. But Penny knew that White life is valued and that Black life is cheap in a nation quite literally built by the forced labor of captive Afrikan human beings.
Penny claimed he doesn’t see color in an interview. His lawyers say he’s not a White supremacist. He doesn’t need to be. Even if both of these things are true, the issue is about the system which enabled him to feel he could kill a Black man on a subway, and which subsequently failed to charge him with murder despite the incident being filmed.
People have highlighted the fact that the men who held Jordan Neely’s arms, while Penny killed him, were non-White as if this is evidence that race played no role in Neely’s death, but this is meaningless. Systems of oppression have always had Black and Brown collaborators. In fact, they are essential to maintaining them.
Others, who are happily cheerleading and salivating at the lynching of Jordan Neely, have pointed to Neely’s prior police record. This is a false argument too. Penny didn’t know anything about Jordan Neely’s history as he killed him. Even if he had, Neely’s past doesn’t justify murder.
This was the same argument that racists levied to justify the murder of George Floyd – Floyd was no saint and so therefore killing him in the street was justified was the thinking. This is the logic of idiocy, a bit like anti-abortion ‘pro-lifers’ who’d also like to give guns to kids.
Nobody has the right to act as judge, jury, and executioner in the street – except apparently if the killer is a White man and the victim is Black.
“Systems of oppression have always had Black and Brown collaborators. In fact, they are essential to maintaining them”
But it’s not just by virtue of who Daniel Penny is, and how the legal system is constructed, which enabled things to play out as they did. The media as ever has played a key role. In the days following Jordan Neely’s killing, Neely’s name was dragged in the media. We see this all the time. The presumption of guilt on the part of the Black person, and a presumption of innocence for the killer.
Neely was already tried in the media, and blamed for his own death before Daniel Penny was even arrested. And not just that. As I wrote about it at the time, the media clearly knew Daniel Penny’s name for some time before they published it. They consciously protected him. In addition to this, a fundraiser for Daniel Penny’s legal fees reportedly garnered close to $2 million in donations from the public.
All of this reflects the fact that the dominant culture and legal system operates in much the same way as it always has. Black lives don’t matter and the entire system was stacked against Jordan Neely from the very start.
Daniel Penny is no Good Samaritan, it’s a ludicrous argument. How many videos have you seen of Black marines, killing White men on public trains, to then receive more than a million dollars in donations? I’ll wait.
From the outset, Daniel Penny had every chance of walking away from murdering an unarmed Black man, and although he faces trial later this year he has so far avoided murder charges. His gamble that he could commit murder and evade justice may well prove to be correct.
This is a sad and infuriating story made in America and which is a direct reflection of it. It took place last year but may as well have happened in 1850.
The political culture both left and right have willingly allowed real change of this wicked system to remain little more than a pretty soundbite at the best of times, over decades, and at worst, have actively held back any real efforts for reform.
Remembering Jordan Neely one year on from his killing reminds us that the inherent anti-Blackness at the foundation of American society is as alive today as it ever was.
Jordan Neely is a case in point, was not the first, and sadly will not be the last.