The Abominable Showmen

“H.R.10330 - To award a Congressional Gold Medal to Daniel Penny, who protected women and children of the city of New York, New York, from violence on May 1, 2023.”

I have inadequate language skills to express the disgust I feel at the introduction of this piece of shit legislation or the piece of shit who introduced it, Rep.Elijah Crane (R-AZ). Excuse my repeated expletive, but all other words seem inadequate to the task.

Penny, a 26 year-old ex-Marine, was acquitted of charges of criminally negligent homicide in the chokehold death of a homeless Black man, Michael Jackson impersonator Jordan Neely, in a NYC subway car. Neely, who had chronic mental health problems following the murder of his mother in 2007, was agitated and, allegedly, threatening (to) other passengers. Penny’s chokehold lasted more than six minutes, including for a sustained period after Neely’s body had gone limp.

No chokehold, much less a lethal one, can be justified. In my 19 years of NYC subway trips, I witnessed many agitated, apparently mentally ill, passengers, and never feared any of them. Caution, yes. Distance, yes. Empathy, always. Murder, never.

In this incident, as the video shows, a group of seemingly able men stood by and watched with either indifference or inexplicable immobility. Neely was suffocating on his own spittle, reportedly soiled his pants, and dispassionate glances were all the help he got. It is unfathomable that no one intervened. I recognize the perils of, “I would have . . .,” but I would have done more than watch from a distance. It was six minutes, for god’s sake! Start your six minute hourglass and imagine watching the life drain from a man as slowly and steadily as the dripping grains of sand.

But the jury thought otherwise, leaving many questions, including how they might have viewed a Black man choking a white man on a subway floor, even if the Black man was an ex-Marine and the white man was an agitated Gene Kelly impersonator. Penny joined his pals for drinks immediately after the verdict. One might hope Penny would be contrite, or at least civilized enough to decline excessive celebration and adulation. Not so.

The aftermath is an abomination.

Conservatives wildly cheered their vigilante hero. Trump, Vance, Pete Hegseth, Mike Johnson and a few other sick-o-phants took the exonerated hero to the Army-Navy football game, and could be seen having lots of chuckles in their private loge. Hegseth, in particular, seems like a guy who enjoys a good assault. Trump, chicken hawk to the bone, just implores others to engage in violence. The whole wretched scene was like watching a bunch of frat boys standing around a keg after a pledge died from a hazing ritual. (Many of which also involve choking on spittle and pant-soiling.)

Boys will be boys and now they’re running the country. The mentality implicit in valorizing this violence is about to play out in immigration policy, international policy and racial injustice. It is noteworthy - obligatory - to recognize that the objects of all violent American policy, foreign and domestic, are Black and brown people.

The ramifications are terrifying. Jury verdict aside, the not-so-subtle implication is that taking matters into your own hands is not only virtuous, it is heroic. While there is at least a thread of ambiguity in the Penny legal case, the license just issued to other macho men has no expiration date, especially if the perceived threat is from a Black man.

The introduction of a bill to honor Penny with the Congressional Gold Medal is the gravest among the litany of offenses. I suspect it will pass with flying colors, given the dismal state of our union. Our chickenshit representatives have insufficient spine to stand up to the bullies who are eager to shine a golden spotlight on a chickenshit ex-Marine who squeezed the life out of a destitute Black man.

Awarding this Gold Medal lends especially putrid offense when placed in context with a few other recipients:

Roberto Clemente

Marian Anderson

Joe Louis

Roy Wilkins

Jesse Owens

Colin Powell

Nelson Mandela

Little Rock Nine

Rosa Parks

Navajo Code Talkers

Jackie Robinson

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Coretta Scott King

Tuskegee Airmen

Dalai Lama

Victims of the 16th Street Baptist bombing

Selma to Montgomery marchers

Larry Doby

Harlem Hellfighters

Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley

How dare they add Daniel Penny to such a list!