The horrific lynching of Jordan Neely by a white ex-Marine on a New York City subway car on May 1 exposed the obscenity of whole sections of people cast off, demonized, with nowhere to turn, in the richest country in the world. Following is a sampling of responses on social media, or sent to revcom.us.
Jordan Neely Image from twitter
A social media blogger who focuses mostly on sports posted, “[H]ow many people were on that train? How come nobody just, like, offered Jordan Neely a swig from their water bottle? Or, hell, tried to pry off the guy literally strangling him to death right there on the floor? Did any of them have anything at all they could give to the person first suffering, and then just straight-up dying, right in front of them?” (Albert Burneko)
* * *
After Daniel Penny, the man who choked and killed Jordan Neely, released a statement through his attorneys claiming to be compassionate about mental health, people on social media responded with messages like, “This is so evil, man. This is what happens when the language of mental health gets co-opted, now you can kill someone and portray it as a way to raise awareness for mental illness. This is incredible sick.”
* * *
Sent to @TheRevcoms: So sad to read the terrible news about Jordan Neely... 💔 I don't live in the USA, but I am with you in spirit and I love your cause and your purpose and all the hard work you are doing to make significant change. You give me hope and you inspire me to talk about these issues. —Tania Bies, poet
* * *
A white mental health professional who was on her way to work but stopped to join the protest called by the revcoms, told Revolution, why she was there: “Because it was a lynching. It happened on the subway in this city and no one did anything. And the fact that people are in that position in the first place.”