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I was debating gun control. Someone insisted that his gun was his best protection. I told him that his best protection is something he can’t even see, something he’s probably never thought about. His best protection is something ephemeral, something multisyllabic; something you can’t explain in a soundbite. “Your best protection,” I insisted, “is narrative.”
My family lived in the same house for almost seventy years. I was in and out of that house for decades. Not only did I never use a key, I don’t even know if a key existed. We slept with doors and windows open. Neighbors walked in and out without knocking. We lived in New Jersey, America’s most densely populated state. Our town was mostly white but there were blacks, Ramapo Mountain People, Chinese, Indians, Filipinos, Arabs, and Hispanics as well.
It wasn’t paradise. My hometown exposed me to the slings and arrows that flesh is heir to. In just three short blocks, I know of four women who had serious mental health or cognitive issues. This was back in the bad old days when doctors would irresponsibly over-prescribe drugs like Thorazine and Miltown. There was substance abuse, domestic abuse, suicides attempted and completed, and the very rare ax murder. Our town was industrial and cancer was ubiquitous. One family seemed targeted by God: cancer, crippling injury, chronic illness. And we were poor.
What made the town so safe? My best guess. We shared narrative. We were all working class, and religiously observant, largely church-going Catholics. We were children or grandchildren of immigrants. We were patriotic Americans who realized how lucky we were to be here, and not there, where our cousins lived under Communism or otherwise in poverty. The kids played together. The adults socialized together. We thought of ourselves as characters in each other’s narrative.
Some envision ideal love as A staring at B and B staring back at A. That love eventually tarnishes. Passion cools and familiarity breeds contempt. A more long-lasting love is structured as A and B staring, together, at C. C could be God. C could be the kids. C could be a shared business or home ownership. The C that binds people together could be a shared narrative. That shared narrative, like a quilt, can connect diverse people who have never met. Many Americans felt this after 9-11. That stunning attack caused normally quarreling and remote people to feel invested in each others’ lives.
There were bad things I could have done, that many kids do, that I never did, because they went against our narrative. Shoplifting. Smoking. Getting drunk. Taking drugs. Teen pregnancy. Skipping homework. Everyone around me, in what they said on these topics, informed me that they went against our narrative. If I did them, I’d feel guilty and ashamed. I would feel that I had taken a step down in status; I’d feel degraded. I would feel that I had hurt and betrayed people to whom I was connected, not just my parents, but my town and my ancestors.
Narrative: God bless America. Narrative: young people owe older people respect. Narrative: sex before marriage is a sin. Narrative: “Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.” Narrative: men and women are different and they have different roles they must fulfill. Men support their kids. Women nurture life. Narrative: drug abuse is shameful and deadly and a terrible burden for loved ones. Addicts are responsible for their own recovery. Narrative: you are part of a larger society and you share important values and history with that larger society. You donate to charity. You stand for the national anthem. You give your seat to an older person on public transportation. You stand up for the little guy. If you are drafted, you serve, even if the Vietnam War is controversial. You stop at red lights. You wear a slip under a skirt. You owe other people your participation in the larger narrative.
Again, my little town hosted the same challenges humans face everywhere. I know of at least two victims of domestic violence who went to live with neighbors for a time in order to escape what was going on at home. We were unaware of domestic violence shelters. Addicts were pressured to attend Twelve Step meetings that were held in the basement of the Catholic church down the street. In one case, my dad personally prevented a neighbor from committing suicide. I don’t know if this man ever saw a therapist; he saw my dad, a neighbor. It wasn’t paradise. There was a lot of human pain. But it was extremely safe.
The most dangerous place I ever lived was the Central African Republic, a remote and very poor country. Guns were not the problem. Most people’s most deadly weapons were their machetes. Overcrowding was not the problem. There were only 2.5 million people in a country the size of Texas. The Central African Republic had abundant resources. My students told me that if they got hungry they could go into the bush and easily capture their next meal.
Violence was unceasing: bombings, stabbings, kidnaps, rapes, torture, cannibalism, theft, riots, threats. The 2013 reports of “genocide” of Christians by Muslims, and then subsequent retaliatory killings of Muslims by Christians are just one violent outbreak among many in CAR. One among many problems is a lack of shared narrative. CAR was a major site of slave raids, then a colony, then ruled by Bokassa, an evil, corrupt dictator. Some tribes were slave traders; some tribes were cargo. Central Africans see themselves as members of their particular tribe. The country has never had a unifying government or a national narrative.
I remember once traveling by pick-up truck through miles of uninhabited bush. Those next to me on the truck were plotting, in Sango, to kill the Arabic-speaking Muslims on the truck. The truck broke down in the middle of nowhere and I got off and just started walking. I didn’t want to be around when and if the killing began.
The narratives that create a safe environment can be destructive. I lived in a very safe, remote village in Nepal. I slept with my door open. I trekked, often alone, miles through the Himalayan Mountains. I recognized that one narrative that rendered that tiny village so safe was the Hindu caste system and also karma, the caste system’s frightening threats of eternal punishments for anyone who violated caste. My neighbors were devout and lived in fear of the punishments outlined in Hindu scripture. In spite of my foreignness, given my pale skin and facial features, Nepalis interpreted me as high caste. The caste systems’ rigidity was a narrative that kept believers in check.
Narrative’s power is displayed in efforts to institute new narratives. In recent years, the Woke have introduced new vocabulary and severely punished those who refused to adopt it. Teachers who refer to male students as “he” can be fired. Words must constantly be rendered unspeakable and new words must replace them. “Racism” becomes “anti-blackness.” “Homeless” becomes “unhoused.” “Slave” becomes “enslaved person.” “Pregnant mother” becomes “pregnant person.” “Breast feeding” becomes “chest feeding.” The Woke advance is charted in narrative changes.
Characters must be replaced. “White man” is now an insult. New main characters arrive to replace the problematic white man. In Hamilton, America’s Founding Fathers are not white. In the new Camelot, Lancelot sports an Afro. On Netflix, King George III’s wife, Queen Charlotte, is black, as is Henry VIII’s wife, Anne Boleyn, in a previous production. Cleopatra, a descendant of Greek rulers, has also been turned into a black queen. “God bless America” is replaced with Obama’s mentor, Jeremiah Wright’s, “Goddamn America.”
Not that long ago, in 1992, Bill Clinton called the traditional American narrative an “ideal.” “Work hard and play by the rules, you’ll do a little better next year than you did last year, your kids will do better than you.” Clinton used the phrase often. In 1996, he said, “If you believe in the values of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, if you’re willing to work hard and play by the rules, you are part of our family and we’re proud to be with you … When you walk out of this hall, think about it. Live by it.” It’s hard to imagine a Democratic candidate today speaking so openly of love for America’s founding documents and an American narrative of hard work and self-discipline.
An infamous story signals a hideous rent in the American narrative. On March 27, 1964, the New York Times published history-making coverage of the stalking, stabbing, rape, murder and robbery of 28-year-old New York bar manager Kitty Genovese by 29-year-old Winston Moseley. Moseley was a serial killer, rapist, and necrophiliac. He was also a husband, father, and home-owner. “I chose women to kill because they were easier and didn’t fight back,” Moseley would say. Asked how he could commit such a heinous and drawn-out attack in a heavily populated area, Moseley said, “‘I knew they wouldn’t do anything; people never do.” Moseley’s attack lasted a half an hour. Genovese fought back, as wounds on her hands show.
Initial Times coverage alleged that 38 witnesses saw or heard the attack, but did not help or call police, because they “did not want to get involved.” The Times report began melodramatically. “For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens. Twice their chatter and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. Each time he returned, sought her out, and stabbed her again. Not one person telephoned the police during the assault.” The Genovese murder epitomized a shocking change in the American narrative. Now, the story suggested, anomie and chaos replaced community and mutual concern.
There were significant errors in the Times story. There were not 38 witnesses who saw and understood the attack and did not help or phone for help because they “didn’t want to get involved.” Some witnesses did attempt to call police. Robert Mozer yelled at Moseley to “Let that girl alone!” Moseley left the scene and waited for Mozer to return to bed. Then Moseley returned and completed his attack. Many heard something but weren’t sure what they heard. Sophia Farrar, Genovese’s friend and neighbor, rushed downstairs in her nightgown to investigate, and cradled Genovese’s head as she lay dying. The Times’ image of 38 people seeing, understanding, and refusing to act was simply false.
Times editor A.M. Rosenthal resented attempts to correct the Times’ record on this story. He took pride in the positive impact the story had, for example the creation of the 911 emergency call system. Rosenthal would later say to Kitty Genovese’s younger brother, Bill, “What was true? People all over the world were affected by it. Did it do anything? You bet your eye it did something. And I’m glad it did.” Bill was devastated by his sister’s death. The 2016 film The Witness recounts his efforts to come to terms with the tragedy.
On one hand, the Kitty Genovese story is a hideous rent in the American narrative. On the other hand, Kitty Genovese reaffirms the American narrative. Inspired by her story, others chose service. Kitty’s brother Bill volunteered to serve in Vietnam, where he lost his legs to a landmine. Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger “said he was always haunted by the story of Kitty Genovese.” In Texas, when he heard the coverage, “I made a pledge to myself, right then at age thirteen, that if I was ever in a situation where someone such as Kitty Genovese needed my help, I would choose to act. I would do whatever I could … I felt this real resolve … to live in a certain way.” Citizens struggle to find a way to “rescue” Kitty long after her horrific death. They don’t want to redeem Kitty alone. They want to redeem themselves. They want to redeem their society. They work toward a redeemed narrative.
If you think long enough about Kitty Genovese, you will eventually think about the Holocaust. We have been trying to redeem that narrative, too. To create a world where action would be taken sooner, and the Nazis’ victims would be saved in time. James Solomon, who directed The Witness, attributed the inaccuracies in the Times’ coverage at least partially to the impact of the Holocaust. “I do think that part of the reason this false narrative came to be was … the Holocaust. In 1964, several months after Kennedy’s assassination, the country was asking, ‘Who are we?’ and I believe that that question extended back to the Holocaust.” Rosenthal “had been a correspondent in Eastern Europe in the late 1950s. He was deeply affected by the Holocaust … he ruminates on silence and the nature of being an observer and not acing. How much of that thinking informed and influenced the Kitty Genovese narrative is an interesting question.”
Our attention to these questions takes us back to two very much older narratives. Cain, the first murderer, asks God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” A more contemporary translation has Genesis 4:9 thus: “Am I supposed to look after my brother?” The answer the Bible implies is, yes, you are supposed to look after your brother, and not just your brother.
The Good Samaritan is a game-changing parable from the New Testament. When asked what is the highest commandment, Jesus says to love God and your neighbor. When asked who one’s neighbor is, Jesus responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan. In Jesus’ day, ethics were tribal. One was to treat members of one’s own tribe with one set of ethics, and strangers with a different set. Jesus proposed universal ethics.
Other cultures struggle with universal ethics. In 2011, a two-year-old Chinese girl, Wang Yue, wandered into a market. Subsequent events were recorded on camera. In the video, a bus runs over Wang with its front wheels, then, with effort, with its back wheels. Wang, still living, lies in the street. Eighteen people pass by her and do nothing. They appear well-fed, well-dressed, and not in any hurry. They can see exactly what they are passing – a two-year old girl bleeding to death. Another truck comes along and runs Wang over again. Eventually a 58-year-old woman, a garbage scavenger, Chen Xianmei, aka “Granny Chen,” stopped to help Wang. Of course by then it was too late.
A discussion ensued in China. Many argued that Chinese ethics, especially a feature called “guanxi,” demands that one extend concern to those to whom one is intimately connected, and allow for one to ignore the pain of strangers. The character for “guanxi” consists of the characters for “closed” and “system.” “We are brought up to show kindness to people in our network of guanxi, family, friends and business associates, but not particularly to strangers, especially if such kindness may potentially damage your interests,” one Chinese author wrote. “We need a Good Samaritan ethic,” some Chinese stated, using that very term. A story told two thousand years ago by a Jewish carpenter is cited in new laws in 21st century China. The power of narrative.
On May 1 2023, according to reports, Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man, entered a New York City subway car and behaved in a threatening manner. Multiple passengers phoned 911, at least one reporting that someone had a gun or a knife. Daniel Penny, a 24-year-old former Marine, immobilized Neely with what has been called a chokehold. At least two other passengers participated in immobilizing Neely, as video shows. Neely was later pronounced dead. Penny’s hold has been blamed for his death. Penny is white; one of two other men restraining Neely appears to be black.
The New York Times ran articles depicting Neely as a Michael Jackson imitator. One article was accompanied by a very attractive photo of Neely, looking harmless. USA Today depicted Neely as a “beloved part of many New Yorkers’ daily commute” The paper quoted Lennon Edwards, a “family lawyer.” “What he could have been, the world will never know … But we do know that he was someone who should have had an opportunity and a chance, a chance to recover – a chance to turn his life around, a chance to fulfill a dream that he had as a child.” Clearly, in this narrative, society never gave Neely a chance. The paper quotes activists alleging that society – white society – “successfully campaigned to keep poor people in jails” and “flooded our subways with cops.” “Neely’s death is the direct result of ‘abandonment and dehumanization of people experiencing homelessness and mental health complexities.'”
Conservative media dug deeper and exposed truths that interfered with the Neely-as-black-Christ-figure narrative. The New York Post reported that a Reddit user claimed that Neely had attempted to push him onto subway tracks. Ten years ago, Corazon DeLeon posted on Reddit, “Try to stay away from the Michael Jackson impersonator if you see him.” DeLeon warned that the man had “become a maniac” “He’s just been a scary dude.” ” I was scared for the people next to him … Just avoid the guy at all costs, try not to look at him at all. Stay safe.”
Newsweek and The Gateway Pundit catalogued some of Neely’s many arrests and convictions; for example, Neely pled guilty to attempting to kidnap a seven-year-old girl. On another occasion, Neely beat an elderly woman, a stranger, so badly he broke her bones. He carried out at least two other unprovoked assaults on women in the subway between 2019 and 2021. On another occasion, he beat an elderly man. Neely used K-2, an illegal drug known to cause violent behavior.
The Left desperately craved to turn Neely into a Christ figure. How do you commodify and exploit an adult man who pled guilty to trying to kidnap a seven-year-old girl, and who liked to beat up on women? The Left portrayed Neely as a victim of its chosen enemies: capitalism, white supremacy and the stone-cold callousness of American society. Neely was a “poor” “black” man undergoing a “mental health crisis” who “needed help” but was murdered by a “white man.” The white man was a convenient, readymade villain. The Left has shown more care for Neely than it showed for Tyre Nichols, an innocent black man beaten to death on camera by five police officers. Nichols’ killers were all black. Nichols’ death did not serve the narrative. Nichols will never receive the attention that Neely receives.
Neely was exculpated for his anti-social crimes because Neely was really the victim. Neely’s mother’s boyfriend strangled Neely’s mother to death when Neely was 14. That murder traumatized him. Being mentally ill was not his fault. Neely was completely helpless. Completely innocent. He made no choices that worsened his own life or his treatment of others. America was to blame. America murdered Neely because America is white supremacist and uncaring. The “amen” to this ritual chorus is “We need a revolution!”
I grew up with someone whose parent, when this person was just a child, was murdered in an unspeakable and heartbreaking anti-immigrant crime. This person lived a rough road but grew to be a law-abiding and productive member of society. If you ask me how he did it, I would have to say, “Narrative.” His narrative, and the narrative of the community around him: don’t wallow in your troubles. Be a good family man. Don’t quit. Work hard. Take care of other people. Fear God. The idea of living on the street and taking illegal drugs would simply never occur to him.
Again, in my little hometown, in just a few short blocks, I knew of at least four women with serious mental health issues, at least one of whom was prescribed Thorazine. These women were neither verbally nor physically abusive. They dealt with symptoms that luckier people never have to confront, but they were otherwise non-violent, law-abiding, clean, productive citizens. I knew these women fairly well and I feel safe in saying that none of them would conceive of taking illegal drugs or living on the street. That was not a plot point in their narrative nor did it appear in the narratives of their husbands, who stuck by them “in sickness and in health.”
We are told again and again that mentally ill people are more likely to be victims of violence than to be perpetrators of violence. We are told this as part of an effort to remove the stigma from mental illness. Further, mental illness alone does not predict violence. Rather, other factors, including choices the mentally ill person makes, make violence more or less likely. “While perpetrating violence is relatively uncommon among those with serious mental illness, when it does occur, in many cases it is intertwined with other issues such as co-occurring substance use, adverse childhood experiences, and environmental factors, says Eric B. Elbogen, PhD, a psychologist and professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at the Duke University School of Medicine.”
What co-occurring factors predispose the mentally ill to violence? “Substance abuse.” “Adverse childhood experiences.” What was Neely’s first adverse childhood experience? Not the murder of his mother.
Neely’s father Andre Zachery, 59, has spoken to the Daily News. “‘I just want something to be done … Obviously he was calling for help … He wasn’t out to hurt nobody. He was a good kid and a good man too. Something has to be done … My son didn’t deserve to die because he needed help.’ The victim’s godfather Barry Kniebs, 64, suggested the Marine was way out of bounds when he laid hands on Neely. ‘This individual seems like he’s a vigilante … them days are over.'” “‘The whole system just failed him. He fell through the cracks of the system,” Neely’s aunt Caroline Neely said.
Caroline Neely, Jordan’s aunt, reported that Andre Zachery “abandoned Jordan as a baby.” Nedra Guaba, a close friend of the family, said that “Jordan lived with his father occasionally but the two did not get along.” His mother’s death destroyed him because “She was his sole support. His father sure wasn’t.”
Being abandoned by his father was Neely’s first “adverse childhood experience.” His mother moved in with a bad man with whom she “fought every day.” After his mother’s murder, Neely dropped out of school, an institution that might have provided structure and support.
Some amorphous “system” did not fail and could never rescue Neely. Neely’s family failed Neely, and then Neely failed himself. So many of his relatives have reported to the press that his mother’s murder, when he was only fourteen years old, devastated him. Where were they? Did they feed him, house him, teach him a narrative that enabled him to survive and thrive? If so, Neely listened to other narratives. Narratives that approved of dropping out of society and using an illegal drug that may have contributed to his violent behavior.
The “system,” and rotten old capitalist white supremacist Amerikkka, tried, again and again, to help Neely. Neely resisted help. “Mr. Neely was on what outreach workers refer to as the ‘Top 50’ list — a roster maintained by the city of the homeless people living on the street whom officials consider most urgently in need of assistance and treatment. He was taken to hospitals numerous times, both voluntarily and involuntarily.”
After one arrest for beating an elderly woman, Neely was treated with kid gloves. The Times reports, “He was to go from court to live at a treatment facility in the Bronx, and stay clean for 15 months. In return, his felony conviction would be reduced. He promised to take his medication and to avoid drugs, and not to leave the facility without permission. ‘This is a wonderful opportunity to turn things around, and we’re glad to give it to you,’ Mary Weisgerber, a prosecutor, said. ‘Thank you so much,’ Mr. Neely replied. But just 13 days later, he abandoned the facility. Judge Biben issued a warrant for his arrest.”
Jordan Neely was living his life by a narrative that facilitated violence and human decay. Living on the street, begging and threatening those who didn’t give, taking drugs, hurting, rather than contributing to society, were all acceptable plot points in that narrative. Those who give money to homeless panhandlers subsidize this narrative. Leftists who denigrate America and despise those of us who “work hard and play by the rules” advance this narrative.
Neely was not the only New Yorker living with trauma. On January 15, 2022, Michelle Go, an Asian-American woman “who did everything right,” was pushed in front of a subway train by an assailant sharing significant demographic details with Neely. Martial Simon was a homeless black man and said to be mentally ill. The subway murder of a good woman, Michelle Go, received a fraction of the attention allotted to Neely.
In April, 2022, Frank James mounted a terror attack in a subway car. He shot ten people. James was also black. On April 11, 2023, a teenager was shot dead on the subway; authorities say his death is most likely related to gang violence in a largely black housing project. On or before December 10, 2022, a man was stabbed to death on the subway. On October 23, 2022, video was released showing a black man shoving a man onto a subway track.
The New York City subway system is a deadly place. Crimes are disproportionately committed by black men. Passengers take that information with them when they enter the subway. When Neely, as reports indicate, began shouting in an irrational and threatening manner, passengers went into “fight or flight” mode. The three men who restrained Neely worked to keep him immobilized until police arrived.
The New York Times has been working hard at selling Neely as a Christ figure and cruel, cold, capitalist, white supremacist America as the assassin who did him in. In a surprise move, New York Times readers are having none of it.
“A Subway Killing Stuns and Divides New Yorkers,” the Times reported, on May 4, 2023. Neely’s death, some say, “was a heinous act of public violence to be swiftly prosecuted, and represented a failure by the city to care for people with serious mental illness.” The short article referenced “mental illness” five times and “emotional illness” one time. Clearly, “mental illness” is the new euphemism for “violent, anti-social criminality.”
Times readers, in the comments section, voiced a very different narrative from that of the Times itself. The following excerpts are from the nine comments voted “most popular” by Times readers.
“If I were in a confined space with someone menacing everyone and ranting that he’s ready to die or go to prison, I’d be thinking ‘I’m in the middle of the next mass shooting.’ It’s very easy to sit at home, in front of your keyboard, and claim that you’d remain perfectly calm in that situation.”
“Notice how this article omits that he told everyone he was ‘ready to get a life sentence’ after he had been yelling at people and behaving erratically. Instead they cite a different quote to make it seem like he was less of a threat than his other words indicate.”
“This guy had been terrorizing people on the subway for years. 43 arrests, with many against women and the elderly. The rider who got involved was trying to help others (yes there are people that still do that). The government won’t enforce the law, so its citizens are often left in dangerous situations.”
Neely’s “aggressively threatening behavior in a NYC subway car led to his being restrained by someone who would have been hailed as a Good Samaritan had Neely not died. This is what happens when the mentally ill ride the subways, walk the streets and threaten law abiding citizens with physical harm. As for the protesters, I do not see any of them taking into their homes or apartments the homeless and mentally ill.”
“Tens of millions of Americans are worried daily from experience about how uncomfortably drug addicted and meth or psychosis addled desperate people may attack them or their family, with the police unable to intervene and prosecutors unwilling to send them away. Enclosed subway cars without a cop on them can turn frightening in an instant. Sorry, but it’s true.”
“Everyone who rides the subway and everyone outside of a few far left and/or craving attention and/or virtue signaling people agree: it’s a tragedy but the responsibility lies with the city because people should not be threatened or harassed or scared on the subways. No one has a ‘right’ to do that. The ex-Marine was attempting to protect others from someone who was violating and threatening others. It’s a tragedy, but the Marine did nothing wrong.”
“no mention that he had … punched a 67 year old woman in the face.”
“Contrary to progressive doctrine, law abiding people do not have to pretend that drug addicts are victims or that violent mentally ill folks pose no threat.”
“AOC is a member of Congress, and knows nothing about this case other than what she’s read or heard, just like the rest of us. That she feels comfortable pre-judging the case speaks volumes. And remember that Al Sharpton also called for the district attorney to be charged in the Twana Brawley case.”
There are thousands more upvotes awarded to hundreds of more comments on this and other Times articles. The overwhelming vox populi agree: Daniel Penny was a Good Samaritan. Jordan Neely was a threat. His death was a tragedy, but larger forces ended his life, and Penny cannot be held responsible for those larger forces. I identify those larger forces as the narratives by which people choose to live, and teach their children to live.
When it comes to Neely, both the Left and the Right claim that they want to live in a society with more Good Samaritans. Only one side is telling the truth. The Left is lying. Here’s why. Good Samaritans, to do their work, require a society where members share and act on the same narrative, and that has to be a narrative that supports Good Samaritan actions. If you want to take from society, you have to give to society. Neely took, but he gave back violence, self-indulgence, self-destruction, and hate.
Leftists support the narratives that killed Neely even more surely than the Marine’s restraint. Broken families, no standards for behavior, a complete rejection of personal responsibility for anti-social acts, drug use, living on the street, panhandling, refusing needed mental health treatment, insistence that America is an unjust place and cultivating despair, are all championed by the Left.
The Good Samaritan here is not the leftists screaming for wealth redistribution and releasing criminals from jails. It’s not the leftists who side with the criminal, and ask law-abiding citizens to passively sacrifice their bodies, their public spaces, their sense of security, to victimization by anti-social elements. The Good Samaritan here is the Marine who risked his own comfort and safety to protect those on that train who are old fashioned enough to “work hard and play by the rules.” The Left’s narrative, one where Amerikkka is a genocidal, white supremacist monster who offers no services to the poor, where there is no such thing as personal responsibility, responsibility to one’s family, parental responsibility to the children one brings into this world, where every misfortune can be blamed on the “system” that is supposed to “do something” where the family did nothing to help its own, that narrative will harm many, many more Jordan Neelys.
Danusha Goska is the author of God through Binoculars: A Hitchhiker at a Monastery
“ We shared narrative. We were all working class, and religiously observant,”
You shared morals and they stemmed from Judaism and Christianity.
If these Jewish and Christian morals are so persuasive and conducive to peace and brotherly love how come Christians persecuted Jews for more than a thousand years? How come Christians of different sects and denominations persecuted, imprisoned, burned each other at the stake, massacred, and made war on each other for centuries in the name of Christianity?
Why were the Lutherans such staunch supporters of Hitler? Have you ever seen pictures of Southern Rednecks enjoying the lynching of a black man at a Sunday picnic after church on Sunday? Have you looked up how Holy Scripture was used by Christians to defend slavery and Apartheid? Have you done some research on how Holy Scripture was and is used to justify the welfare state, social justice, the redistribution of wealth, and socialism?
Socialism in all its philosophical, fundamental, points is Judeo-Christianity stripped of its supernatural elements and replaced with pseudo-secular, pseudo-science. Socialism is crypto-religion, religion masquerading as secular science.
No, Judaism and Christianity (and no religion) when taken completely seriously in its totality leads to equal individual rights and respect for those rights. A mystical, supernatural, religion practiced seriously in its comprehensive totality leads to the initiation of physical force against infidels, heretics, and blasphemers, intolerance and the tyranny of theocracy.
“No, Judaism and Christianity (and no religion) when taken completely seriously in its totality leads to equal individual rights and respect for those rights. A mystical, supernatural, religion practiced seriously in its comprehensive totality leads to the initiation of physical force against infidels, heretics, and blasphemers, intolerance and the tyranny of theocracy.”
You never miss an opportunity to conflate Christianity with Marxism. You never have really understood the path to Heaven so you just make it up, changing it as needed to suit your current neurosis. In your world a Marxist Christian inspired theocracy is just a few weeks away.
How did I know you would bring up the Hitler/Lutheran angle….one of your favorites.
How did I know you would bring up the “religion taken seriously” angle….another one of your favorites.
You are as toxic and moronic as they come. I wonder what happens if Objectivism is taken seriously in its truest original form and that force becomes necessary gain unwilling adherents.
Hello THX and Intrepid. But doesn’t Marxism contradict the teaching of both Judaism and Christianity? The Inspired Scriptures tell us that “it does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step” (Jeremiah 10:23) And Genesis tells us that the tragedy we are presently living in began when our first parents decided to break away from their Creator and rule themselves. Having done so, they found they could not even keep themselves alive, let alone run this beautiful and complex planet.
Surely Marxism says, effectively, that it DOES belong to man to direct his step, always provided he chooses Marxist/Communist leadership.
I know who I believe – and it is not Karl Marx.
And Intrepid, you speak of the path to heaven. But as a Christian, my hope is to “inherit the earth” and live forever on this wonderful planet. I hope you will, I hope THX will, I hope Dr.Goska will, I hope we all will.
Jesus says specifically, “No one comes to the father but through me”. I think that is pretty clear.
And yes, Christianity and Judaism are directly contradicted by Marxism, and THX’s religion as well, Objectivism.
THX will be inheriting nothing unless he changes, which he won’t.
I don’t think the article was about you or your hatred of Christianity.
Oh yeah, she still won’t date you. I guess you are pissed off now so now you attack her religion.
Sometimes THX and Intrepid make me laugh.
Glad I can help.
Oh, shut up. Your ignorance is palpable; you know nothing about what you write. Just shut up about religion. And history. Two of the many areas in which you are profoundly ignorant.
Continue to write intelligent posts about things you know (other than one particular would-be philosopher who also didn’t know what she was writing about half the time).
Everything in my comment is historical FACT!
Some source material would help. Like a link or something. Anything. I guess that would be too much to ask. After all, there is your never ending narrative to promulgate
Some things are not facts simply because you say they are…even in CAPS with an EXCLAMATION POINT!
WELL STATED. Our Media is our top Enemy as I see them .10 + years ago I stopped our subscription t o the newspaper. Nothing they say is the truth. They have caused most of the riots and deaths because of their coverage .. .
Neely is no martyr .He was a time bomb waiting to go off
Neely would be alive if he stayed in his seat. And patiently waited for his stop.
Another interesting article Dr..Goska. The Jordan Neely incident is very depressing as the message seems to be that the authorities will not protect you and they will not allow you to protect yourself. Maybe this will help more and more of us – the damaged children of disobedient Adam – to turn to our Creator, the God of Abraham – who is our true Source of help and salvation.
I relate very much to the beginning of this article. As a child of the post-war baby boom, I have noticed how the consensus (or narrative) that kept our world safer and more orderly has been broken down, bit by bit – and I assume deliberately. So we see “the increasing of lawlessness” everywhere. But, as you also note, it was not paradise back then.
Doesn’t paradise lie ahead? Under the loving reign of the Kingdom of God the whole earth will become the paradise of peace its Maker has always purposed.
Better to just avoid blacks, 90% of them. I realized just how f-ed up in their narrative thinking even the college educated blacks are after the OJ Simpson trial verdict. I was working at a company and the whole company was allowed five minutes to go watch the verdict in the conference rooms. All the black employees cheered the verdict and all the non-black employees stayed silent, looked at each other, and were not only stunned by the verdict but even more stunned by the gleeful, malicious, exuberance of the black employees. These were the college educated blacks.
The ghetto blacks are even scarier and more bizarre. Whenever I find myself among ghetto blacks I literally feel like I’m an anthropologist on Mars, to borrow a title of a book. I find ghetto black culture more bizarre, more weird, more scary, and more FOREIGN than any other culture I’ve ever dealt with.
I just stay away from American blacks, the whole lot of ’em.
Blacks are the most racist people. The amount of hate they have for any other race is off the charts. That is my experience as well. And none the hundreds I’ve known so far were victims of anything by anybody.
I believe this is an unfortunate statement. Blacks are my/our neighbors. So many are kind and helpful to me (an old white guy) in my daily life and are valued neighbors and friends. So many are good productive citizens despite obstacles. Each of us is enjoined by our Creator to love our neighbor as ourself.
The blacks that you refer to are the blacks brought up by the old school narrative. There are still some out there, thank God for they are the black culture’s hope, but far too many live and learn at the feet of the ghetto.
There’s no question that Jordan Neely was mentally ill. He was as sick as they get. Still, without an effective mental health system, he got what he deserved—finally. If you are looking to place blame, place it on the politicians in the U.S. Congress who passed the Mental Health Act of 1964. That Act gutted a system of state hospitals where truly sick people were identified and were kept from society. At the same time, it prevented the numbers of mass shooting we see today. Probably 90 percent or more of mass shooters are mentally ill.
They thought that psychotics would go regularly to community mental health care centers to get meds. That seems like poor planning since such people would be highly unlikely to keep schedules and go to places to be given meds by strangers. They’d much more likely believe it was a government plot to poison them rather than to help them. Why? Because you’re dealing with highly mentally ill people. Guess they didn’t think of that, though.
Or maybe they did think of it. That act came just before they opened our country up to the world and declared the US a “nation of immigrants”. The globalist plot went into full swing at that time. Ending the mental hospitals was an important step toward creating the chaos and violence we live with today.
Thank you, Professor. Another essay with wisdom and comprehensive research and reporting. We need to create or re-create a better narrative in and for our country and society.
Incisive, as usual from this author, We are a story-telling species, and narrative is crucial to our societies.
My guess is that the people in NYC who are opposed to the Marine’s actions and term Neely’s violent behavior as “a cry for help,” do not themselves often ride the subway. How easy and self-flattering to take this attitude and promote conditions you don’t have to deal with.
An interesting point was the part where Dr. Goska said that because she was light-skinned people thought she was high caste and respected her. You can go to Google and search for pictures of Indians by caste and you will see the higher the caste the lighter the skin, the lower the caste, the darker. Golly, and I thought racism was a uniquely American thing.
That’s not racism, that’s colorism.
Some say colorism comes from the contempt and fear of hard, manual, slave, or serf labor. It was slaves or serfs who were forced to labor in the fields under the scorching sun and therefore had darker, sun tanned skin.
Personally, I think that’s probably only partly true. I suspect but can’t prove that fair skin and light skin are inherently more attractive to the majority of mankind than dark skin, just as blue, green, grey, or amber eyes are much more attractive to everyone than brown eyes. Just as straight hair is more attractive than kinky hair and a full head of hair is more attractive than thinning hair or baldness.
There’s another factor involved in the unattractiveness of dark skin versus fair skin, dark skin is very rarely even toned, it is almost always blotchy. I’ve noticed that on the rare occasion that a black woman has a dark and perfectly even tone it is very beautiful indeed.
I’ve also noticed that there isn’t one and only one kind of white skin. White skin also comes in different shades and tones. People find extremely pale, sallow, or pink skin unattractive too.
A perfect, even tone, is probably more important to the attractiveness of a complexion than the actual color of the complexion, within certain limits, too dark or too pale a complexion, and it becomes unattractive. It probably has to do with a subconscious awareness of health versus unhealthiness.
Wow that is some pretzel twisting.
You really are that racist, but on in the most respectful and intellectual way.
I guess you are hoping no one will call you out as the effete little racist you actually are.
You are such a girl.
Wow. Not even a mention of Ayn Rand and you’re still obsessively attacking this guy. Do you actually know each other?
No I don’t know him, thank Zeus for that! If you’ll notice I almost never reply to him. He’s simply baiting me to engage me in an endless back and forth of insults which is what he really enjoys. I refuse to go down that rabbit hole with this Mad Hatter again.
I can only imagine that this dude has had a life-long history of conflict, confrontation, and anger issues with anyone he can’t dominate and control.
One of the best selling products by Asain and Indian pharmacies are agents to lighten the skin. Light skin is revered.
This article touched on an excellent article point.
The punk Jordan’s dad & other relatives are weeping & wailing about “the (white supremacist) system that failed him”.
The family failed him. His AWOL dad failed him. His dad could’ve taken custody after the mom was murdered, but apparently couldn’t be bothered. They cast him adrift, and let nature take it’s course.
They made bad & neglectful choices, and Jordan followed the “I’m victim hear me roar” & entitlement ethos that’s so prevalent in black culture.
Reagan warned that freedom can be squandered in a generation.
LBJ helped orchestrate the destruction of black families in about a generation with his bullshit Great Society. But hey . . . he probably did get their votes for the next 200 years.
I heartily agree but would add that black family ties were weak even before LBJ. I would also put blame on the black church which is and always has been highly overrated in its “moral influence”.
This is an important article by a writer of considerable intellectual heft.
Yes indeed, it is.
Turn thieves Robbers and Rapists into their folk heroes of fools and socialists types
EXCELLENT!!!He “Covered All The Bases”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A lucid request for common sense and community responsibility.
The important takeaway from this sad event is that our society MUST return to a legal system that permits the extended institutionalization of individuals like Jordan Neely who have proven their unfitness to live in civilized society. Some will improve with therapy but some will not. We have to bring back an important element of the mental health system which was far from perfect two generations ago. The current situation is clearly unacceptable. Let us have a thorough debate and test out some form of trialed alternatives.
Face it Mr & Mrs. Neely, your son was an asshole.
I consider this article to be the best one you have ever written for FPM.
Back in the early 1970’s I rode the New York subways and it was the Wild West. It’s devolving into the same chaos and misery and filth and fear that it was then, and I well understand why this is happening. If you let people get away with crimes, they commit crimes. It starts with the turnstile jumpers (“just kids”) and accelerates to the mentally ill, who are the troglodytes that inhabit and rule the places underground. When Giuliani was mayor he concentrated on the little crimes (“broken windows”, as per his police chief Willim Bratton) and that had a profound effect on the city. Loitering, panhandling, unauthorized public performances (busking, as Neely was described doing with his moonwalking and other impersonations), and yes, turnstile jumping, were prosecuted; the police were excoriated as fascists of course but amazingly, the city, including the streets and public transportation, were cleaned up very nicely. The formula employed by Giuliani and Bratton was not complicated and did not call for great expense, just lots of arrests and demands that judges put people in jail for the “little crimes”. But of course that was before the days of Soros DA’s and judges, so I’m not sure it could be implemented today.
.For the most part, black people are fed a different narrative than any other group. They are fed this from the moment they leave the womb and they are fed it mostly by their families. There are a great many black people who never encounter white people at all, yet they are taught to hate them and blame all their problems on them. They believe complete and utter lies about white people and if they don’t encounter them, they take out their frustrations on those people they do see such as Asians, Hassidic Jews and Latinos. They receive no condemnation from black leaders, spokespeople and clergy for this. If they do encounter white people, they choose the most vulnerable and, while in a pack usually, are utterly sadistic in their attacks. The purpose of the blame whitey narrative is to deflect any attention or acknowledgment of abuse, violence, lack of empathy, and love or respect in so many black homes. Children are more likely to be resented by their families rather than nurtured.
2) Neely’s heavy use of the synthetic marijuana known as K2 or Spice doesn’t just make people violent. Often laced with rat poison to extend its effect, it makes users confused, delusional, nauseous and prevents sufficient oxygen from getting to their heart. It gives them palpitations which means that ordinary methods of restraining people would be more likely to have a deadly outcome if the individual was already suffering from lack of oxygen.
Marxism can be described as a Christian gnostic puritan heresy. Salvation is as central to the narrative, not of oneself but of other people (usually imaginary) or other imaginary things (“the world”), not in the world after but in this world, not through spiritual but through political actions, and of course the results don’t matter since the point is proving one’s moral superiority. Puritan progressives are in the business of fantasizing that they “save” people they don’t know or things they don’t understand via ritualistic meaningless actions.
No one can be “saved” by anyone. Every single person is the only one that lives in their lives 24/7. Outside extreme situations the impact of anything else is negligible. People trying to save anybody or anything else, esp. before they saved themselves are false.
Thank you for providing these details. 51546411