Daniel Penny

Millions of people in the United States are de facto deputies who can be asked at a moment’s notice to carry out what is considered the most important job in the nation, keeping Black people under physical control. The most recent case brought to public attention was that of Daniel Penny, a white man who put an emotionally disturbed Black man, Jordan Neely, in a chokehold on a New York City subway. Neely died after the assault and Penny was recently acquitted of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. What followed was a predictable and righteous reaction of outrage at the obvious racist injustice.