Racial Violence on Display: Horrific Killing of Black Man on NYC Subway
On May 1, 2023, a white guy murdered a black guy in public on the F train in New York City. People video-recorded him and put it on social media. Some helped the white guy hold the black guy on the train's floor. The killing has sparked protests among black people of yet another innocent black person murdered because of the whims and fancy of someone who believes in the indestructibility of his whiteness.
It’s recently all over the news. All the headlines secretly glorify the murderer as a hero, a “US ex-Marine.” His lawyer said he did not mean to kill the man, so despite the videos, the murderer is innocent. It was “white vigilantism,” some said. The victim was a poor, likely mentally ill person, on the train making noise. One thing is for sure: he was non-white and poor.
Yet, I bet someone, maybe his mother or family loved him. Maybe his friends. What kind of society do we have that allows a human being to live a miserable life without resources, then just kill him without regard? His family now has to mourn his senseless death because of something as idiotic as whiteness. I wonder if that ex-marine would kill a dog in a similar fashion. Likely not! We all, including people who believe they are white, know that.
I have lots of issues with the very way this is being reported. Where is the in-depth journalism on Mr. Jordon Neely, the victim’s life story? I want to see some real journalism for a change instead of the blah, blah blah that I am seeing. They report on the murderer as if he is a military hero, hardly misdirected in his happy killing of another person.
I am sure we will hear the usual defenses—mental health, did not mean to chokehold and murder the victim, meant well, was just trying to calm the black man down, blah, blah, blah! In fact, even in the reporting, the white press is already defending him—nothing on the victim's life and a story from white people of why they do this and what they intend to do to stop this uncivilized behavior by some of their believers.
Mr. Jordon Neely was a human being. It’s unlikely that when he was a kid, he aspired to be on a train hungry and wanting, in a city riddled with millionaires and billionaires eating whatever they want and having so much access to jobs and resources because of their complexion and the benefits racism provides them.
Where are the journalistic stories that will expose a system that, from birth, put Mr. Neely in a lifetime chokehold where he may not have had a chance to prosper? I don’t profess to know Mr. Neely or the perpetrator of the crime, but I know that white guy would not have gone crazy and put a chokehold on a white man or even a white woman.
The white murderer knows he is a trained killing machine, and he knows he accepts whiteness and all the benefits and immunity it provides. He likely believes that his arrest for manslaughter is just the typical smoke and mirrors show where law enforcement pretends they will do some form of justice and then eventually let him live his life.
The KKK and other white supremacist groups may give him an award for his duty to their cause. He may have been a loser before, ex-military, but now, someone white will give him a job and reward his deeds. Whiteness does not care about an Afro-origin life, even if you are of mixed ethnicity.
This saddens me, but it will happen again in a few minutes somewhere else in America. Not all of these killings have a camera watching. Often it’s the police as aggressors on black people instead of protectors as they are paid to do. We may hear about some of these lynchings due to social media and cameras on our phones, but whiteness does not fear murdering non-whiteness in public. They feel invincible. And again, people of all ethnic origins will watch as it happens. As on the F train, some will take out their phones and maximize their social media views and likes.
Unfortunately, as with Mr. George Floyd and so many others, as with Mr. Neely’s case, when this happens again, NO ONE will try to help. Does watching someone get murdered by a white man make you also a monster? No one punched the ex-marine. No group of people ganged up on him and tried to pry him off, Mr. Neely. As his life was being drained from him by whiteness, people on the train saw the victim’s arms go limp and realized he had defecated himself, and yet, no one thought to beat the ex-marine with their handbag, pepper spray him, stab him with a knife, or shoot him to save the dying sufferer. Mr. Neely was sadly left to see a crowd of people watch him die, with no one coming to save his life.
Are we even human anymore? We are certainly not humane!
Not one white person who claims to be a good Christian, not one black person who prays to their God, not the screaming women, children, and men seeing this barbaric behavior by a white man would stop him. And guess what?
The murderer probably knew that would be the case. He knew no one would dare stop him. He knew that in the short run, no one would stop him. He knows that the justice system will be easy on him in the medium term. He will not get life imprisonment or capital punishment (even if he were in a state with the death penalty, he would not worry). The manslaughter maximum in New York is 15 years. He knows he can soon write a book about his experience, how he turned his life around since the “incident,” and how life was so hard for him.
He and his family get to keep all their income and assets, and he may suddenly get recognized by white people. He knows that from now on, his life is set. He has reached the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. He has reached self-determination and recognition. It started already. On the train, people commended his chokehold as superior. Before, he was a white nobody, but now he has distinction. Protestors call out his name in hate, but he hates more, so it does not matter. He has fans among those white believers who subscribe to lynching and murder.
This is a rant, but I am exhausted by the feeling that this could have been me or someone I love. When will they come for me? When will they come for any of you, my non-white reader? Danger lurks everywhere in America for non-white people, where there is a belief in whiteness.
