Jordan Neely Was Not a Victim of White Supremacy – Nor of Lack of Services

The leftists celebrating Neely wield a weapon that will hurt more like him.

By: Danusha Goska

I was debating gun control. Someone insisted that his gun was his best protection. I told him that his best protection is something he can’t even see, something he’s probably never thought about. His best protection is something ephemeral, something multisyllabic; something you can’t explain in a soundbite. “Your best protection,” I insisted, “is narrative.”

My family lived in the same house for almost seventy years. I was in and out of that house for decades. Not only did I never use a key, I don’t even know if a key existed. We slept with doors and windows open. Neighbors walked in and out without knocking. We lived in New Jersey, America’s most densely populated state. Our town was mostly white but there were blacks, Ramapo Mountain People, Chinese, Indians, Filipinos, Arabs, and Hispanics as well.

It wasn’t paradise. My hometown exposed me to the slings and arrows that flesh is heir to. In just three short blocks, I know of four women who had serious mental health or cognitive issues. This was back in the bad old days when doctors would irresponsibly over-prescribe drugs like Thorazine and Miltown. There was substance abuse, domestic abuse, suicides attempted and completed, and the very rare ax murder. Our town was industrial and cancer was ubiquitous. One family seemed targeted by God: cancer, crippling injury, chronic illness. And we were poor.

What made the town so safe? My best guess. We shared narrative. We were all working class, and religiously observant, largely church-going Catholics. We were children or grandchildren of immigrants. We were patriotic Americans who realized how lucky we were to be here, and not there, where our cousins lived under Communism or otherwise in poverty. The kids played together. The adults socialized together. We thought of ourselves as characters in each other’s narrative.

Some envision ideal love as A staring at B and B staring back at A. That love eventually tarnishes. Passion cools and familiarity breeds contempt. A more long-lasting love is structured as A and B staring, together, at C. C could be God. C could be the kids. C could be a shared business or home ownership. The C that binds people together could be a shared narrative. That shared narrative, like a quilt, can connect diverse people who have never met. Many Americans felt this after 9-11. That stunning attack caused normally quarreling and remote people to feel invested in each others’ lives.

There were bad things I could have done, that many kids do, that I never did, because they went against our narrative. Shoplifting. Smoking. Getting drunk. Taking drugs. Teen pregnancy. Skipping homework. Everyone around me, in what they said on these topics, informed me that they went against our narrative. If I did them, I’d feel guilty and ashamed. I would feel that I had taken a step down in status; I’d feel degraded. I would feel that I had hurt and betrayed people to whom I was connected, not just my parents, but my town and my ancestors.

Narrative: God bless America. Narrative: young people owe older people respect. Narrative: sex before marriage is a sin. Narrative: “Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.” Narrative: men and women are different and they have different roles they must fulfill. Men support their kids. Women nurture life. Narrative: drug abuse is shameful and deadly and a terrible burden for loved ones. Addicts are responsible for their own recovery. Narrative: you are part of a larger society and you share important values and history with that larger society. You donate to charity. You stand for the national anthem. You give your seat to an older person on public transportation. You stand up for the little guy. If you are drafted, you serve, even if the Vietnam War is controversial. You stop at red lights. You wear a slip under a skirt. You owe other people your participation in the larger narrative.

Again, my little town hosted the same challenges humans face everywhere. I know of at least two victims of domestic violence who went to live with neighbors for a time in order to escape what was going on at home. We were unaware of domestic violence shelters. Addicts were pressured to attend Twelve Step meetings that were held in the basement of the Catholic church down the street. In one case, my dad personally prevented a neighbor from committing suicide. I don’t know if this man ever saw a therapist; he saw my dad, a neighbor. It wasn’t paradise. There was a lot of human pain. But it was extremely safe.

The most dangerous place I ever lived was the Central African Republic, a remote and very poor country. Guns were not the problem. Most people’s most deadly weapons were their machetes. Overcrowding was not the problem. There were only 2.5 million people in a country the size of Texas. The Central African Republic had abundant resources. My students told me that if they got hungry they could go into the bush and easily capture their next meal.

Violence was unceasing: bombings, stabbings, kidnaps, rapes, torture, cannibalism, theft, riots, threats. The 2013 reports of “genocide” of Christians by Muslims, and then subsequent retaliatory killings of Muslims by Christians are just one violent outbreak among many in CAR. One among many problems is a lack of shared narrative. CAR was a major site of slave raids, then a colony, then ruled by Bokassa, an evil, corrupt dictator. Some tribes were slave traders; some tribes were cargo. Central Africans see themselves as members of their particular tribe. The country has never had a unifying government or a national narrative.

The Good Samaritan is a game-changing parable from the New Testament. When asked what is the highest commandment, Jesus says to love God and your neighbor. When asked who one’s neighbor is, Jesus responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan. In Jesus’ day, ethics were tribal. One was to treat members of one’s own tribe with one set of ethics, and strangers with a different set. Jesus proposed universal ethics.

On May 1 2023, according to reports, Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man, entered a New York City subway car and behaved in a threatening manner. Multiple passengers phoned 911, at least one reporting that someone had a gun or a knife. Daniel Penny, a 24-year-old former Marine, immobilized Neely with what has been called a chokehold. At least two other passengers participated in immobilizing Neely, as video shows. Neely was later pronounced dead. Penny’s hold has been blamed for his death. Penny is white; one of two other men restraining Neely appears to be black.

The New York Times ran articles depicting Neely as a Michael Jackson imitator. One article was accompanied by a very attractive photo of Neely, looking harmless. USA Today depicted Neely as a “beloved part of many New Yorkers’ daily commute” The paper quoted Lennon Edwards, a “family lawyer.” “What he could have been, the world will never know … But we do know that he was someone who should have had an opportunity and a chance, a chance to recover – a chance to turn his life around, a chance to fulfill a dream that he had as a child.” Clearly, in this narrative, society never gave Neely a chance. The paper quotes activists alleging that society – white society – “successfully campaigned to keep poor people in jails” and “flooded our subways with cops.” “Neely’s death is the direct result of ‘abandonment and dehumanization of people experiencing homelessness and mental health complexities.’”

Conservative media dug deeper and exposed truths that interfered with the Neely-as-black-Christ-figure narrative. The New York Post reported that a Reddit user claimed that Neely had attempted to push him onto subway tracks. Ten years ago, Corazon DeLeon posted on Reddit, “Try to stay away from the Michael Jackson impersonator if you see him.” DeLeon warned that the man had “become a maniac” “He’s just been a scary dude.” ” I was scared for the people next to him … Just avoid the guy at all costs, try not to look at him at all. Stay safe.”

Newsweek and The Gateway Pundit catalogued some of Neely’s many arrests and convictions; for example, Neely pled guilty to attempting to kidnap a seven-year-old girl. On another occasion, Neely beat an elderly woman, a stranger, so badly he broke her bones. He carried out at least two other unprovoked assaults on women in the subway between 2019 and 2021. On another occasion, he beat an elderly man. Neely used K-2, an illegal drug known to cause violent behavior.

The Left desperately craved to turn Neely into a Christ figure. How do you commodify and exploit an adult man who pled guilty to trying to kidnap a seven-year-old girl, and who liked to beat up on women? The Left portrayed Neely as a victim of its chosen enemies: capitalism, white supremacy and the stone-cold callousness of American society. Neely was a “poor” “black” man undergoing a “mental health crisis” who “needed help” but was murdered by a “white man.” The white man was a convenient, readymade villain. The Left has shown more care for Neely than it showed for Tyre Nichols, an innocent black man beaten to death on camera by five police officers. Nichols’ killers were all black. Nichols’ death did not serve the narrative. Nichols will never receive the attention that Neely receives.

Neely was exculpated for his anti-social crimes because Neely was really the victim. Neely’s mother’s boyfriend strangled Neely’s mother to death when Neely was 14. That murder traumatized him. Being mentally ill was not his fault. Neely was completely helpless. Completely innocent. He made no choices that worsened his own life or his treatment of others. America was to blame. America murdered Neely because America is white supremacist and uncaring. The “amen” to this ritual chorus is “We need a revolution!”

(FrontPageMag.com)

Danusha Goska is the author of God through Binoculars: A Hitchhiker at a Monastery