America’s Becoming the Society the Fascists Want

What the Death of Jordan Neely Says About a Country Where Hate and Violence Are Exploding off the Charts

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I barely know how to begin. Let me try to start here. America is becoming the society the fascists want.

By now, maybe you’ve seen the pictures. If you haven’t heard the story, it goes like this.

On Monday afternoon, a white man riding the F train in Manhattan put a Black passenger in a choke hold. The latter had been screaming about how he didn’t have anything to eat or drink, according to a witness who spoke with multiple media outlets and who said there was no physical provocation prior to the incident. That witness also filmed a nearly-four-minute video that shows the Black man flailing his arms and legs before he eventually goes still and another person turns his limp body on its side.

Where do you even begin? Let me try again. A man was choked to death on the F train in Manhattan. The chokehold lasted fifteen minutes. None of the other riders intervened. Because someone wanted to kill him. But this wasn’t any ordinary crime. It wasn’t a robbery, or a hit, or anything of the sort. It was something entirely different, in another realm entirely. It’s already been compared to a public lynching.

What just happened here? This is what it means to become a fascist society.

Whether or not this was a murder has already become, sadly, foolishly, gruesomely, a matter of “debate.” Let’s dispense, first, the the canard that this was anything near the realm of “self-defense.”

Neely had been “acting erratically” before the incident but had not attacked anyone on the train prior to being put in the chokehold, a witness who recorded the encounter told CNN.

Juan Alberto Vazquez said he was riding the subway when he saw a man, later identified as Neely, enter the car just as the doors were closing. Neely immediately launched into an aggressive rant about being “fed up and hungry” and “tired of having nothing,” Vazquez said.

Neely then took off his coat and threw it on the floor and said he was ready to go to jail and get a life sentence, Vazquez said.

Many passengers became visibly uncomfortable and moved to other parts of the train car, but Vazquez told CNN it didn’t seem like Neely was armed or looking to attack anyone.

Another rider then approached Neely from behind and put him in a chokehold, Vazquez said.

Two other passengers approached, with one seemingly trying to mediate, while the other seemed to be helping the man restrain Neely, Vazquez said, adding that he started recording the incident about three or four minutes after the chokehold began.

In the video, Neely and the other man are seen on the floor of a subway car with the man’s arm wrapped around Neely’s neck.”

That’s from someone who was there. It’s not in dispute. Nobody is saying that Jordan Neely — the man who was killed — harmed anyone. And yet you can see that certain sorts of people are slavering over his death. Celebrating it. Lauding the killer as a hero. Is that…decent? Or obscene?

Let us be very, very clear. Jordan Neely was innocent. Of any sort of crime whatsoever in that subway car. So what was he guilty of?

Existing.

Who was he? He was a Michael Jordan impersonator. He was a man. He was a black man. He was poor, mentally ill, homeless. He was a lot of things.

Was this just “vigilante justice?” No. Neely was innocent. This wasn’t justice of any kind whatsoever. It was injustice. Of the highest kind there is. Taking an innocent person’s life…just because…

Just because.

What really happened here? A man — in this case, a former Marine — may have decided that he was going to take Neely’s life. That he was going to torture him to death — which is what being strangled for fifteen minutes is — on a subway car. He may have decided that he had the power to do that.

Just because.

Because…what? In moments like these, we look for answers. Obvious ones. Have you ever lived in Manhattan? I have, for a long time. Ever lived in a city? People begging for money, food, clothing, shelter — they’re, sadly, commonplace. They always have been, in cities, and I’m not saying that’s right, I’m just saying it is. If you or I were to take upon ourselves to start killing them…well, then we’d have death squads, wouldn’t we?

There’s a guy who lives in my neighborhood. There he is, on the street, every day, when I take Snowy to the cafe. Begging, aggressively. Change! Change! Sometimes, he even seems a little big angry, always sort of hostile. Is it OK for me to take it upon myself to…kill him? To torture him to death? Of course not. That wouldn’t even be vigilante justice, because as annoying as the guy is, he’s not doing anything remotely illegal, harmful, or even wrong. He’s innocent.

None of us have the right to take anyone’s right to exist.

I’m going to say that again, because, well, America’s already forgetting about Jordan Neely’s death. Who cares about a poor, mentally ill, homeless, Black man? LOL, dude, let’s talk about AI. Forgetting. Should we forget things like this? Or do they demand a moment of reflection from us, if we’re going to even make some sort of half-hearted attempt to honor the life lost, and give it the purpose in death it was denied in life?

None of us have the right to take away anyone’s right to exist.