Jordan Neely

We were talking before, my husband is a journalist as well, and he wrote this beautiful book recently called Man in the Mirror.

And it's about the tragic incident on a train between Jordan Neely and Daniel Penny three years ago on the subway.

And and he this book is a it's a deep dive into all of the different communities and and and systems that in a way failed that created that moment on the subway.

And one of the heroes of this book is a community organization called Fountain House.

So Daniel Penny is either a hero or a vigilante, you have to pick.

Jordan Neely is either a career criminal who was finally put down or a victim of every systemic injustice in American life, you have to pick.

And I tried to recover both of them as well as a lot of other people from that clickbait factory.

We've talked about Penny.

Jordan Neely is someone who comes into this world in a very precarious state, father largely out of his life, mother is in and out of shelters, a lot of bad men, abusive men.

And he suffers this appalling tragedy when he's barely an adolescent.

His mother is murdered by her boyfriend.

Thank you, Harry.

You guys are like best-seller besties.

He's also a journalist whose new book, A Man in the Mirror, examines the killing of Jordan Neely, a homeless Black man who was struggling with mental health issues.

And he was killed by Daniel Penny, a former Marine, who put him in a chokehold on a New York City subway.

So Penny was charged, but ultimately acquitted, and the case became a national flashpoint.

And a few months after that, a fateful event would lead to three years of research that would produce his new book, Man in the Mirror, Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City.

That event involved the choking to death of a young, homeless, mentally ill former Michael Jackson impersonator named Jordan Neely by an ex-Marine named Daniel Penny, and it led to a huge, high-profile court case and a lot of culture war coverage in the media.

I reviewed Man in the Mirror about a month ago for our book club here on Conspirituality.

And today I'm delighted to have Anand Giridharadas joining us after multiple full starts in terms of getting scheduled to do this interview.

It's great to be back.

Your new book, Man in the Mirror, Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City, was released on September 29th.

At the center of it is this tragic 2023 death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old Michael Jackson impersonator who was killed on the New York subway by a 24-year-old former Marine named Daniel Penny, who restrained him on the floor in a chokehold for about six minutes.

Now, we'll get into the details on all of this in a bit because you've situated the story in the compelling human context of how these two young men found themselves on a collision course that I think really paints a portrait of American socioeconomic and political injustice.

so i want to start just by sort of setting the table just if giving actually the author's introduction of what this book is about from its central characters before we get into some of the broader themes so if you could just sort of tell us what this project is

three years ago on a subway train in new york city a 30 year old black mentally ill homeless man named jordan neely boarded the train he was uh formerly a michael jackson impersonator of modest renowned you know european tourists would sort of prowl around times square looking for the michael jackson guy in his heyday he had since fallen on pretty hard times with you know homelessness and and severe mental illness schizophrenia he begins acting out in that subway car throwing his jacket to the ground sort of screaming i'm i'm hungry i'm thirsty i want something to eat i want something to drink i'm ready to go back to jail forever i'm ready to die those kinds of things and maybe kind of moving towards different passengers and in that A very brief moment of that one-stop ride.

A 24-year-old former Marine, white guy named Daniel Penny, comes up behind Jordan Neely, puts a kind of choke hold around his neck, drops him to the ground over his own body, and just sort of begins holding.

The train gets to the next station, Broadway Lafayette.

Door's open.

Virtually everybody gets out except those who want to stay.

And from that point on, Daniel Penny continues to hold Jordan Neely for another five or so minutes, ultimately killing him.

And from the moment you might've first heard about this case, it immediately was this American Rorschach test.

The whole episode brought to the fore a conversation that needs to be had in cities around the country and the world, frankly, around homelessness, drug addiction and mental health.

30-year-old black man named Jordan Neely was acting erratically on the New York City subway when former Marine Daniel Penny decided to take matters into his own hands, approaching Neely from behind and putting him in a chokehold, eventually killing Neely.

Penny was charged with negligent homicide and later found not guilty.

The political and media firestorm in New York after Neely's killing spun into a broader reckoning about homelessness, racial inequality, and fear.

But to try to understand the broader question which everyone naturally goes to is, why did stuff like this happen? To me, what's striking about the way a lot of people look at homelessness is there is a tendency, particularly on the left, to say, People are callous about the homeless.

There's racial biases and things.

But the thing about this guy, and you write about this in the book, Jordan Neely, is he had been arrested almost 50 times before, four times for violent assaults.

He had punched a woman in the face, breaking her face bones.

I totally agree.

What you do, though, in your book is you drop us into the consciousness of not only two people, Jordan Neely and Daniel Perry, who we would probably – Penny.

Penny, who we would not know otherwise about.

But you also drop us into the consciousness of a lot of people who played major roles in this drama.

Doors open, everybody gets out, as you could imagine, who wants to.

And from that point on, the chokehold lasts another five minutes or so.

And Jordan Neely dies.

And, you know, from the moment...

I'm Tonya Mosley.

Jordan Neely knew how to draw a crowd.

For years, he danced as Michael Jackson in New York subways, people stopping in their tracks to record him doing the moonwalk.

But in May of 2023, Neely boarded a crowded subway in crisis.

the narrative machinery in this country right now, the way on social media a story like this one is turned into fodder, clickbait.

And what happens when that happens is human beings become caricatures.

So Jordan Neely was either...

In the telling of people right after this case, you know, a career criminal who was finally put down or he was a victim of every systemic injustice in American life.