Statement on Refusal To Give Justice in the Name of #JordanNeely
On May 1, 2023 #JordanNeely was lynched in broad daylight for the crime of being Black, unhoused, and possibly suffering from mental illness by a white supremacist vigilante named Daniel Penny. Jordan was known to those in his community as a talented dancer and Micheal Jackson impersonator. While he was possibly experiencing a mental health episode or a moment of frustration on a New York City subway, white former Marine Daniel Penny, choked Jordan to death. On December 9th, this murderer was acquitted. Neely’s lynching was ruled lawful by the jury.
Through this verdict, the U.S. has brazenly returned to its racist roots, once again giving a green light for white civilians to carry out public lynchings of Black people. Jordan Neely needed care, housing, and mental health services. Instead of providing these basic needs that all people should be afforded, the criminal legal system has determined that the killing off Black unhoused people is acceptable. In many ways this is a revisitation of the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, in which ruling Justice Roger Taney claimed, African Americans “had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”
Black Lives Matter Grassroots unequivocally condemns the acquittal of Daniel Penny and remains firmly grounded in our mission to disrupt the racist, anti-Black, settler colonial values upon which the United States was founded. We will continue to build the systems of care and community that Black people need to thrive.
Press Contact: press@blmgrassroots.org
