Jordan Neely was shouting threats on the NYC subway.Fellow passenger Daniel Penny put Neely into a chokehold and killed him.
Journalist Anand Giridharadas believes both men felt abandoned.Above, protestors rally in support of Neely in New York City on May 24, 2023.
Michael M.Santiago/Getty Images hide caption On May 1, 2023, an unhoused Black man named Jordan Neely boarded the New York City subway.
For years, Neely had drawn crowds with his Michael Jackson impersonation, but on that day he was in crisis, shouting threats and frightening fellow passengers.A white former Marine named Daniel Penny stepped in, putting Neely into a chokehold for six minutes, killing him.
Later, a video of the encounter divided the country.To some, Penny was doing what the police weren't there to do.
To others, Neely was a victim, another Black man whose life had been treated as disposable.Journalist Anand Giridharadas spent more than two years investigating what the video couldn't show.He wanted to write a story "that would take us to the heart of America and what it means to live in this country, in this moment." When tragic stories become social media fodder, Giridharadas says, "human beings become caricatures." In December 2024, Penny was acquitted of criminally negligent homicide after a jury hung on a second degree manslaughter charge and the prosecution dismissed it.
Within days of the verdict, Vice President-elect JD Vance invited Penny to the Army-Navy game alongside President-elect Trump.Soon afterward, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm gave him a job.In his new book, Man in the Mirror: Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City, Giridharadas posits that both men felt let down by the systems that should have protected them."I think Jordan Neely had felt abandoned for a very long time, and had reason to feel that way," Giridharadas says.
"D...