We don't have to compassion our way towards harm

Two things can be true: Jordan Neely's life and death was tragic, but the answer is not to put ourselves as risk because "compassion"

Predictably, the woke internet has determined there is only one response to the death of Jordan Neely: murder supporters and not murder supporters.

As I was not on the subway to witness all that happened and am not a mind-reader, I don’t know exactly what Daniel Penny was thinking or intending when he choked Neely out on Monday. As such and considering the circumstances and news reports, I think it’s reasonable to assume that Penny was attempting to restrain a man who had been yelling at and threatening subway passengers, including, allegedly, Penny himself. I am also assuming Penny did not intend to kill Neely. Based on a longer version of the video, I have the impression the men restraining Neely were attempting to do so until the police came (which they did not). I have never attempted to restrain or choke anyone and have no idea how this should be done effectively both to restrain a mentally ill man who is fighting back, but also not render him unconscious. (To be clear, I am sure I would accomplish neither no matter my intent.)

Neely had a horrible life, was struggling with very serious mental illness, including schizophrenia, and was also a violent, aggressive man. As

Lee Fang

reports:

Before his death, Neely had a warrant for his arrest for allegedly punching a 67-year old woman as she exited at a subway station in the East Village in 2021. The victim of his assault was reportedly knocked to the ground and suffered a broken nose and orbital bone, according to the New York Daily News. Neely had been arrested over 40 other times, including for punching Filemon Castillo Baltazar, a 64-year old man in the face at a Greenwich Village subway station and for kidnapping a 7-year old girl.

Even not knowing any of this, had Neely gotten onto my train car, I would have been scared, and any woman who claims otherwise is lying or so disconnected from her own instincts she is a danger to herself.

I don’t say this because I think there are no brave women. I say this because you have instincts for a reason, and if a man is behaving in a threatening or even a sketchy, erratic way, your spidey senses should go off. Not having boundaries or being prepared to react defensively when around dangerous men is, well, dangerous. And any woman who takes public transit in cities with a lot of addicted, mentally ill homeless people should know exactly who to be nervous around on public transit and why.

Numerous people online, including feminist Jessica Valenti, have insisted that if “things feel sketchy” you should simply walk away. Because as everyone knows, if you are trapped on public transit with a man who is threatening you, you can easily pry open the door and walk out right into traffic or leap on onto the train tracks from a moving car.

I am from a city with a lot of mentally ill, addicted, homeless people. And I spent over two decades taking the bus back and forth, twice a day (sometimes more), to and from work and/or school. The plebs must do that, you know. I didn’t even own a vehicle until I was like 38. These are not the kinds of things I could afford. Working class people take the bus. To their jobs. Gross, I know. Don’t do it if you can avoid it.

After taking the bus home from work every day for years, through the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, I finally determined the stress wasn’t worth it so just started walking home. This took me an hour, which is not the worst thing in the world, but not the most convenient, either, and really, in a relatively wealthy city like Vancouver I think it’s fair to expect to be able to get home safely from work on public transit without feeling like you might get punched at any given moment. Barely a day went by where there wasn’t a crazy man behaving in a threatening way, acting creepy, trying to fight someone on the bus, sexually harassing some girl, taking body parts out, standing intentionally with his crotch way too close to my face while I was trapped in a seat, screaming (sometimes at me), or doing something else insane, gross, or intimidating. These are not normal people you can rationalize with. These are mentally ill men who are high on drugs, and when you tell them “no” or something more harsh, they often respond by become even more irate, by threatening you, screaming at you, spitting on you, or by becoming violent. I do not care if this sounds stigmatizing—it’s true. And my safety is more important than “stigmatizing” men who are insane and high on meth. Either way, the truth is not harmful. And having experienced this many times over—after spending too many hours of my life on high alert, full of anxiety, tensed up, hands sweating, just to get to work or to school, for years on end—I determined it was not worth it. I determined that I would avoid public transit at all costs. Just like Jessica Valenti says! Just walk away.

But the thing is, lots of people can’t walk away. Lots of people can’t just walk home. Lots of people can’t afford a vehicle. Lots of people cannot transition to working from home, as I have been so lucky to.

In a post by

Freddie deBoer

, he suggests compassion. And I am a fan of compassion. But not at my own expense. He also says it’s perfectly natural to “feel a little scared” when, for example, passing by a homeless guy in a tunnel in Prospect Park who “gets a little aggro and starts yelling at people as they pass by.” But “a little scared” is not what I feel. I feel a lot scared. Like I’m going to be physically attacked or maybe worse. “Your responsibility is to control your fear and act responsibly” doesn’t apply to me, because I’m the one who will be the victim if it comes down to me or the homeless guy who “gets a little aggro.”

I am a woman and not a man. And, as many of us have determined, men and women are different. And at some point in my life I realized that men don’t quite understand what it feels like to be a woman and to feel vulnerable around sketchy, mentally ill, “aggro” men who yell at us in tunnels or on public transit. Maybe not all women feel this way, but having been followed, screamed at, flashed, spat on, threatened, and abused by men, I am well aware that there is little I can do in the face of a man who intends to physically attack me. In such circumstances, I can only hope that there is another man nearby willing to intervene and defend me, perhaps by restraining or fighting off the predator-man. And this is, as I understand it, though again we don’t yet know for certain, what Penny was doing.

Neely was reportedly on a “Top 50” list of people on the street in most need of help. In an ideal world, he would have been in a mental health facility, not out on the streets, punching people and surely endangering himself as well. He deserved a better life and did not deserve to be killed. But at the same time, if the cops aren’t protecting people in these situations and the state isn’t keeping these people off the streets, what are the rest of us supposed to do? What do you expect to happen when insane people act in threatening, scary ways? People will defend themselves and hopefully defend others. It is a good aspect of human nature.

Indeed, far too many men have sat back and done nothing, pretended they didn’t see, as I or another was being threatened or harassed in public. I want someone to do something.

It’s very easy (and dopamine-inducing) for the pyjama class to sit back on their laptops judging the plebs for reacting to dangerous situations in non-idyllic ways. What a bunch of dirty racists! Clearly everyone should just sit back and get punched or groped or flashed or pissed on or stabbed because that’s what a real ally would do.

Be nice.

Compassion is important. If we didn’t have it, we’d all be very dangerous people. But it seems clear to me that what is being called “compassion” is often not that at all. The thing we are told is compassionate — “harm reduction” — has allowed cities to become insanely dangerous health hazards wherein addicts are left to fester and die in tent cities because god forbid we “force” anyone off the streets. And for women in particular, compassion can be dangerous. We are people who are already trained to “be nice” lest we make anyone uncomfortable. So I resent any leftist man who would be exactly the skinny, pasty, porn-addicted male failure standing by and doing nothing as some meth head screams at me on the subway telling me I’m the baddy for wanting this guy off the streets and away from me. I also resent any feminist who has become wealthy by avoiding being brave, by avoiding telling the truth (and by labeling those who do as hateful), and by choosing politically correct tweets over sense insisting I should compassion myself into danger lest my fear fail the woke test.