Daniel Penny, a 26-year-old Marine Corps veteran, was found. innocence On Monday, a jury returned a criminally negligent homicide verdict in the 2023 death of Jordan Neely. Millions of people watched the outcome of Penny's trial, but the main factor in public interest was the jury's final verdict.
The verdict in a court of law is influenced by facts, evidence, and legal arguments. But unlike legal proceedings, the court of public opinion is often driven by narratives that elevate people from individuals to political symbols representing something far more important in the cultural zeitgeist. After reading conservative commentary on this case, I came to a verdict I did not expect.
Even if you act nobly and bravely, you can still be held accountable by the legal system.
Daniel Penny is the George Floyd of the conservative right.
This comparison is not about personal history. In this respect, the two could not be further apart. But they also share much in common as symbols of injustice and racial persecution for their most passionate defenders.
Floyd, a leftist, was a living embodiment of the historic oppression that black men have faced at the hands of racist police in America. They saw his death as a modern-day lynching, a dynamic that made Officer Derek Chauvin a callous, indifferent hangman.
Progressives were not interested in discussing the effects of drugs on Floyd's health or how his actions influenced law enforcement's response. George Floyd represented everything they believed about the racism entrenched in the criminal justice system. For them, his life and death were the embodiment of the struggle of an oppressed minority.
Daniel Penny is being hailed as a hero by conservatives for intervening to prevent Jordan Neely from harming passengers on the train. For them, a penny the currentpersecution Percentage of white men in American society. While commentary on anti-white bias is typically limited to human resources personnel rejecting white applicants and racial preference systems at universities, many of Penny's supporters see him as an overzealous progressive today. They see themselves as victims of systemic racism perpetrated by top prosecutors. For them, his arrest and indictment by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg embodied society's plight. oppressed majority.
It's tempting to view the two characters through color-coded lenses, but the story built around them is built using tools in the order of politics and race. One side is blue and black. The other one is red and white. Politics fuels the fire. Race fans are on fire.
Additionally, the tribal nature of American society means that either side will resist anything that challenges its preferred narrative. The idea that there was no such thing as a “white George Floyd” disappeared once people learned about the incident. death Tony Timpa's.
Similarly, those who were among the first to bring up race as a motivating factor in Penny's arrest probably don't know that a claim of self-defense failed to deter Jordan Williams, a black man. arrested Williams was charged with manslaughter after stabbing DeVictor Ouedraogo to death on a New York City subway in June 2023. The charges against Williams were dropped after a witness claimed Ouedraogo. physically He assaulted passengers, including Williams' girlfriend.
It should surprise no one that there are blind spots on both sides. Politics and race influence not only media attention but also the strength of reactions to articles.
Some progressives sought to portray Penny as a white supremacist vigilante, even though there was no evidence to suggest that racial hostility motivated Penny's actions. But the right's insistence that Penny was only accused of systemic racism against white people is evidence that conservatives are just as susceptible to confirmation bias as liberals.
Dealing with the depths of the human condition is never easy, especially in a city of over 8 million people. New York City's subways serve as unofficial homeless camps and mental health facilities for too many people. Many of the trains smell like human waste. I think many New Yorkers of all colors appreciate men like Daniel Penny who are willing to protect others from danger.
That doesn't change the fact that part of the government's job is to determine the circumstances in which one person can take the life of another. Murder is a different crime than murder, and the punishment is also different. Self-defense protects those who take their lives because their own lives are in danger. The idea that you can strangle a loud, belligerent person, even a mentally ill person, from behind rather than in the face. Any Legal outcomes are more influenced by politics than by careful reading of the law.
I don't see Daniel Penny as a hero. I don't think of him as a villain either. I see Penny as a man who believed he was acting with good intentions, trying to protect a crowded train from a mentally ill man. However, even if you act nobly and bravely, you can still be held accountable by the legal system.
Leftists denounce the death of a black man at the hands of white people as “anti-black racism.” The right has denounced “anti-white racism” as a white man faces trial over a deadly interracial encounter. Today, there are social, cultural, and political benefits to being an abused victim, so both sides resist anything that challenges their narrative.
The biggest losers in this cultural tug-of-war are the American people. Police misconduct, political prosecution, homelessness, and mental illness are all serious problems that deserve rational and objective policy responses. Unfortunately, political tribalism continues to make it difficult to address these issues in a bipartisan manner.
