I woke up to news of Jordan Neely’s murder at the hands of a white vigilante, who the NYPD released without charge. Jordan’s murder was recorded and uploaded to Instagram, by someone who likely didn’t understand what he was witnessing. Jordan had “a history of mental illness,” and was unhoused. In New York City, it’s a fact of life that many severely mentally ill folks are also unhoused. When you live in that environment long enough, you just kinda learn to move aside or steer clear of the person who’s having a hard time. For the most part, there’s no reason to involve yourself. Most of the time, the person in crisis ain’t thinking about you, or even seeing you clearly. So, you ride the train and get off at your stop. Nobody has time to mix it up with another passenger unnecessarily. Old NYC knew how to mind its business, more or less.
Jordan Neely was from NYC. He was 30. He didn’t have the help he needed. Most people in his situation don’t, because of decades of cuts to public mental health programs. Homelessness diversion programs are overwhelmed, if they exist at all. And so on, and so forth. Jordan Neely did not accost or hurt anyone when the white man stepped in and murdered him, and two other passengers held Jordan down. He was lucid enough to yell and fuss and cuss about how bad his situation had become. Jordan, at most, was scary while not being threatening. This white vigilante, described as a 24 year old former marine, doesn’t have a name that’s been published. Not yet. Not as of the moment I hit publish on this blog post. He saw fit to interrupt and then destroy a Black man’s life. I wonder who else he killed while he was “serving our country.” Was he just choking out Black folks? Non Black people of the global majority? His fellow soldiers? I wonder, because military and police are permitted to be serial killers in the name of a greater good that doesn’t actually exist.
I wonder, also, what would happen to me if I had a mental break in a public place. Who would care enough to help me? Who would find it entertaining and upload it to their social media accounts? Would someone accost me with the intention of harming me in some way? Given the stats on mentally ill people being victimized, probably. The assumption is that our minds aren’t swift enough to protect us, and that any harm coming to us can be dismissed, because we’re “crazy.” That means someone being sexually assaulted cannot rely on their own reporting as sufficient proof, because “crazy.” It means that “unreliable narrator” is the default assumption when someone is depressed, anxious, etc. That’s before we even get to the diagnosis of schizophrenia applied to Black men during the civil rights and Black power movements, as lain out by Jonathan M. Metzl in his book The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became A Black Disease. Drapetomania — the presumed mental illness that made enslaved Africans seek freedom — was considered a valid diagnosis as late as 1914. “Absconding from service,” as Samuel A. Cartwright put it, was proof of masters being too kind to their human property. In other words, giving Black folk an inch meant they’d eventually take a mile. All Jordan Neely wanted was a safe place to lay his head and feed himself.
I live with bipolar disorder and PTSD. I have generalized anxiety disorder. All three of these diagnoses are, in medical terms, in remission. This means I can function without one or all of them causing disruptions in my daily life. Though I am navigating a depressive low at present, I am considered safe enough to be on my own and around others. In the event that I pose a violent threat to myself or another person, I am often advised to seek emergency care. I’m trained in Mental Health First Aid and have worked in clinical settings. This means I know which questions to ask, what certain terms mean, and how to advocate for myself and others in those situations. I am, even if I’m desperately suicidal, not “sick enough” for most inpatient or partial hospitalization programs (PHPs). I’m more equipped, simply because I can articulate myself, for an intensive outpatient program (IOP). This is such an erroneous assumption — suicidal ideation is often hidden. I do not have to openly lament my existence to feel like leaving this plane. Nobody does. Given the awful way people treat one another — and have since the dawn of humanity, I’m sure — it’s not hard at all to want to leave here.
Then, there’s NYC as a character, not just a backdrop. My second favorite city, my second home, is so different now. I can’t ride the train for $2 a swipe, dollar pizza is practically nonexistent, and nobody busks on the train anymore. Nobody plays music at Union Square any longer, unless they’re licensed by the city to do so. The way Jordan Neely danced to Michael Jackson’s music, the way he shared his joy with us … that was made illegal. Community, in that sense, was made illegal. He was not permitted to connect with other New Yorkers. The MTA is regarded as an equalizer of sorts. Pretty much everyone takes the train or the bus. It could be argued that New Yorkers (and thus, Philadelphians, Chicagoans, Oaklanders, et al) don’t get to connect or have collective experiences of joy, creativity, and music the way we used to. We don’t see one another the way we used to. Life is more expensive. We are more tired, more stressed, some of us are working even more. We don’t see one another. Gentrification killed Jordan Neely’s city, and slowly killed him.
I think of that when I think of my own mental illness. I have never had a psychotic episode, but that doesn’t mean I never will. In a situation where I am incapable of taking care of myself, in the event that my treatment plan fails, I am more likely to be a victim of violent crime than I am to commit one. But, we don’t have that social consciousness. it’s not a widely known piece of info, the way water is wet. We know water is wet. We know broken glass is sharp. We do not, as a collective, know that mentally ill people are more likely to be hurt than to hurt others. This doesn’t mean we can’t or don’t do harm, of course. It means our realities are often dismissed, lied about, et cetera. “You imagined it,” or “are you sure it happened that way?” are not uncommon responses to a mentally ill person naming the things that have happened to them. When someone knows about your diagnosis, ableism can easily become their default response to you: “Did you take your meds today?” “I can’t wait for you to see your therapist/ psychiatrist.” “You must be having an episode.” Sanism, a term created by Morton Birnbaum, comes to mind when I think about the dangers of being mentally ill in an antiblack world. As the idea of sanity is a white supremacist one (our bodies and minds are separate under white supremacy, not parts of a whole), all humans suffer within that framework. Even white folks. Their participation and investment in whiteness as a social construct requires them to dehumanize themselves, and feed on the dehumanization of people of the global majority. Epigenetics show us that humans inherit trauma. White peoples’ genetic inheritance, at least in the colonized world, is one of removal from basic human decency. They need antiblackness an all its accoutrement in order to live as white.
There is danger in telling certain people about my diagnosis, even in a doctor’s office or the emergency room. Assumptions about Black people and mental illness, as well as our physical conditions, often drive practitioners to dismiss patients’ whole experiences. I have had a doctor look me in the face and say that an undiagnosed medical condition of mine —which she refused to identify through diagnostic means— couldn’t be as bad as being fat, despite my having told her that my mental health had gone to hell in that time. I was wrong already, for being a fat Black woman; it was almost as if I deserved or had earned my bipolar disorder and PTSD. This doctor’s lack of regard could have killed me.
There are people in my life with whom I will never, ever, ever discuss my mental illness. These are people who may believe they love me “no matter what.” They do not. They love their own illusions, their assumptions, and their coping mechanisms. They love pretending that mental illness and other disabilities are for “other” people. Bad people. People who deserve it. People like Jordan Neely, who said he was tired and “ready to die.” He said he’d go to jail for life, as it was preferable to living on the street. He was in a mental health crisis caused by poverty that he couldn’t bootstrap his way out of, a crisis exacerbated by his existing mental illness. I find it absolutely shameful that anyone would frame Jordan’s murder as anything but a clear example of the dehumanization of Black people and mentally ill people. And yes, we are dehumanized by our fellow Black people. New York City’s Black mayor is one of them. Look at his budget cuts and where he’s investing. He’s just the latest in a string of mayors nationwide who hate the poor, unhoused, and mentally ill as policy. He is not exempt. And he’s already said some things defending the murderer. Or, I should say, the main murderer. The bystanders who held Jordan down… who knows if they’ll ever be identified? Not that it matters, because the main killer walked. We don’t know his name.
We know Jordan’s. Jordan, derived from the Hebrew word yarden, which means “to go down.” The river where John was baptised, and later Jesus. The river that symbolizes breakthrough, transformation, and freedom from oppression. He is not here to dream of, let alone pursue his freedom.
It is my sincere prayer that Jordan is free now, in a way he couldn’t be in life.