It's The Most Marginalized Race That Suffers The Most

According to a 2021 survey, 6% of Americans believe they could beat a bear in hand-to-hand combat. 8% think they could take on a gorilla. Fully 17% imagine they’d be equal to a chimpanzee. 

And 100% of them are very, very wrong. 

Most people have never been in a fight. Even with a human. And so, knowing they’ll probably never be in that situation, they wildly overestimate their abilities. 

In my article, Everything Is Okay At All Times And If You Disagree You’re A Bigot, I argued that many people are overestimating their ability to maintain their composure as a mentally unstable man shouted threats at them. That most of them would have been relieved that somebody took action to stop him. And that none of this means Jordan Neely deserved to die or that Daniel Penny is some kind of hero.

Lock agreed that the situation was dangerous. But he would have handled it better.

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Lock:

While I like your writing style and your article appears reasonable, I am concerned that it might provide comfort for those who have no qualms about justifying the death of black people no matter the circumstances.

Yes, it is alleged that Mr. Neely was perceived as threatening and dangerous on the train. Yes, he was acting without decorum. Yes, people might have been afraid. Yes, he had a criminal history.

However, it is not yet alleged that he physically attacked anyone on the train. It is also not alleged that anyone in the train car where he was choked was aware of his criminal history and was spurred into action because of this.

I'm a black attorney who has lived in NYC for 36 years. I took the trains for years while in undergrad and law school. I've even taken the train, countless times, as an attorney. I've seen danger on the train. I've seen danger and threats all over NYC. Now, imagine if I were to choke people to death every time I perceive danger or threats in my environment, even though those people I killed did not physically harm me or anyone around me when I killed them. Now, let's take it even further and imagine a society in which anyone, who perceives danger or threats in his or her environ, can choke to death the source of the perceived danger or threat, although no one was being physically harmed by the person choked. Would you want to live in such a society?

Certainly, Mr. Neely posed a threat to people on the train. I've had similar experiences. Does it mean that residents of the City of New York have the right to choke him to death? Could his attackers have moved away from him and urged others to do the same? Could they have left the train car, where the threat was, for another car and encouraged others to do the same? Could they have subdued or restrained him without choking him to death?

Would the response to Mr. Neely's death be the same if he had a clean record? Does his criminal history even matter, given the circumstances? After all, it has not been reported that his attackers were personally aware of his criminal record while he was being held down and choked to death. It is likely that they would have acted similarly even if his record was clean. Why has the media juxtaposed Mr. Neely's past criminality with Mr. Penny's service as a marine? Why is a black man's criminal record divulged even when it played no role in his death? What's the purpose?

While I wouldn't consider Mr. Neely's death a lynching, especially after reading the book 100 Years of Lynching, one would be remiss to ignore the racial overtones in a country where race is inextricably weaved into the fabric of people's daily lives. Race is often the impetus for thoughts, judgments, and actions, however benign or malignant. Sadly, in this environment, it is the most marginalized race, of which Mr. Neely is a member, that suffers the most.

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Steve QJ:

“However, it is not yet alleged that he physically attacked anyone on the train. It is also not alleged that anyone in the train car where he was choked was aware of his criminal history and was spurred into action because of this.”

Hi there. No, unless we get some completely new information, I don't think anybody is claiming that Neely physically attacked anyone. I just don't think you have to wait until somebody else has already been attacked before physical restraint can be justified.

And yes, you're right, surely nobody on the train knew about his criminal history. I mentioned it because there's a difference between somebody making idle threats and somebody who has the capacity and the will to carry out their threats. I think most people have a fairly good sense for that difference.

You ask whether the passengers couldn't have subdued or restrained Neely without choking him to death. But I think that's exactly what they intended to do. This was, by all accounts and available evidence, an accident. If Penny had held onto that choke for a little less time, I think most people would be saying that he did the right thing. Certainly the passengers on the train unanimously seem to think he did. Some even made sure to go back and thank him.

Acknowledging that Neely was dangerous and threatening is in no way an endorsement of or justification for his killing. Nor is it an attempt to claim that Penny shouldn't be held responsible for killing him. I state this explicitly in the article. But the fact that we can't have a sober conversation about the obvious factors that led to his tragic death without talking about race, when there is absolutely no indication that his race was a determining factor, only makes these kinds of problems harder to solve.

It's as if we can only have the really relevant conversations if the poor or homeless or mentally ill person is white. And given that black people, as you say, suffer the most from these afflictions, black people are hurt most by the collective failure to have this conversation.

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Lock:

Reasonable response. 🙏🏾🙏🏾

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“Could they have subdued or restrained him without choking him to death?”

I think most of the people struggling with this case are getting hung up on this question. And failing to appreciate that a) this appears to be exactly what the men who restrained Neely were trying to do. And b) that the line between restraining somebody with a chokehold and killing them with one is frighteningly thin.

This is why, for example, it’s illegal for the police to use them.

Penny is a former marine. So chances are, he knew that the hold he was applying was potentially dangerous. The fact that he took that decision anyway, and the tragic consequences that followed, are why he’s been charged with manslaughter. This is absolutely as it should be. But that’s very different to implying that he chose to murder Neely.

We’re incredibly bad, collectively, at focusing on the relevant aspects of a problem. We ignore hard questions in favour of easy outrage. We assign malice when it’s not there and overlook evidence when it is there. We vastly overestimate the likelihood of racial prejudice and underestimate social, economic and mental health factors that are more relevant. 

And as Lock points out, it’s the most marginalised people who suffer the most.