The Meaning of "Law and Order"
The reaction to Daniel Penny killing Jordan Neely shows that the only law and order invoked by this phrase is white supremacy and class domination.
The LAPD beating Rodney King.
Daniel Penny did not need to kill Jordan Neely.
This much should be very clear to anyone that analyzes the situation, for which there is ample video evidence. It appears that even the Manhattan DA agrees with me on this, as he has moved forward to charge Penny with manslaughter in the second degree, a Class C felony in New York, carrying a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.
Whether or not locking Penny up will make New Yorkers any safer (it won’t– statistically, imprisonment increases recidivism) is immaterial. The true threat to public safety here is the ongoing campaign of dehumanization and harassment against the unhoused in NYC, which has only ramped up as certain city leadership and conservative and liberal commentators alike went into overdrive to justify the plainly unjustifiable.
Politico quoted NYC Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, saying simply that unhoused people should not be on the subway, implying that Neely’s mere presence as a mentally ill unhoused person is what prompted the attack. Even when a CNN reporter directly asked if it was an act of unjustified vigilantism, Adams declined to condemn it, framing Neely’s death as part of the larger unhoused person “problem” more than the direct result of Penny putting him in a chokehold for 15 minutes.
Even considering Adams’ inhumane policies towards the housing crisis, his comments come off as exceptionally callous and eager to justify the wanton killing of the most vulnerable people in society. Then again, Adams is a former NYPD officer and continues to pump more money into his former employer while proposing slashes to social services, acting in accordance with the myth that more police funding rather than investment in communities reduces crime. The fact that he seems at least indifferent to the killing of such “problematic” and “unruly” persons, let alone a white man killing a black man, is not unusual behavior for a cop.
Responses in the media, social and otherwise, were equally disgusting and callous. One does not have to go far to find outright justification for Penny’s actions, with certain right-wing commentators even calling him a hero. Media outlets such as the Associated Press and New York Times employed passive voice in the way one would expect of coverage of police killings, up until the AP changed its policy in the midst of the 2020 George Floyd Uprising. A competent editor would not write the headline “Homeless man dies after being placed in chokehold,” but instead “Former Marine chokes homeless man to death.” Or just, “Former Marine kills homeless man, NYPD declines to arrest him.”
Overall, this incident and the reactions to it are illustrative of what I like to call the true meaning of “law and order”. Police and their apologists frequently appeal to it, and it was a favorite refrain of Trump’s in the midst of the 2020 BLM protests. The George HW Bush campaign ran an infamous 1988 attack ad against Dukakis centering the story of Willie Horton, a black man that raped a white woman while he had a weekend pass from prison. Then, as now, the slogan’s euphemistic meaning is more than clear.
“Law and order” refers to neither law nor order. In Trump’s case, there is nothing lawful or orderly about his actions if his many legal woes and the January 6 riot are any indication. Nor is there anything lawful or orderly about police killing with impunity, or, indeed, white vigilantes killing unhoused black men with impunity. The “law and order” it refers to are the hierarchies of white supremacy, class domination, and the right of a government to abuse its most vulnerable and precarious populations.
Jordan Neely, like all unhoused, mentally ill people, represented an open challenge to this “law and order”. Although he did not act violently or directly threaten any passengers, he did reportedly voice his frustration at being hungry and thirsty. In other words, he publicly protested his mistreatment and acted as a walking reminder of an economic system that makes basic human needs inaccessible in a city with the largest GDP in the world. His mere presence as an unhoused man in public demonstrates the utter failure of the city, let alone our current economic system, to properly address the needs of the mentally ill and the absurdity of a system that treats a basic human need as a commodity.
Furthermore, he was a black man acting disruptively, a transgression of his proper place in the hierarchy of white supremacy that required correction by a white vigilante. It is not only that his life is seen as less valuable because he was a mentally ill, unhoused black man, but also that he antagonized a white man instead of keeping quiet and ignorable. Regardless of what the law says or what is orderly, the greater overarching order is white supremacy, class domination and the right of whites, deputized or not, to put them down with deadly force. It is about making sure non-whites, the mentally ill and the unhoused know their place and behave. These populations must be demonized by city leadership in place of the system that creates their suffering.
Through their statements, these politicians, talking heads and media outlets serve to persuade New Yorkers that the solution to an issue that affects them as much as the unhoused is to increase the ability of the state to inflict violence on them.
All in all, this incident was a case of the need to enforce “law and order” outweighing the need for true public safety. The Gothamist recently quoted a Brooklyn resident on how the incident in fact made her feel less safe:
“I was just like, why would he think that was okay to use that much excessive force that you killed someone?” Myers said before boarding a train at the Atlantic-Barclays Center station.
“That made me super uncomfortable because if just anyone can take justice into their own hands, like we're all not safe. It's not for you to take justice to subdue him,” she added. “Maybe if he was actually a threat, it doesn't really sound like he was a physical threat to anyone. So I don't even think that would have been necessary but — move cars, it’s not necessary.”
Well said.
So to Eric Adams, I say shove your law and order up your ass. Housing, not cops!