Daniel Penny Says He Can't Be Racist Because He Was Planning a Road Trip in Africa

[Nevilledog]

https://jezebel.com/daniel-penny-says-he-cant-be-racist-because-he-was-plan-1850460803

Daniel Penny, the man charged with second-degree manslaughter in the video-recorded subway killing of Jordan Neely earlier this month, gave his first interview with the New York Post over the weekend weekend. And his comments were about as deranged as you’d expect coming from a man who thinks it’s fine to kill people who simply make you feel uncomfortable on the subway.

Penny, who held Neely—an unhoused Black man experiencing a mental health crisis—in a chokehold for several minutes, insisted to the Post that he is “not a white supremacist” and claimed Neely’s killing had “nothing to do with race.” As evidence of this, Penny revealed that before all “this” (his strangling an unarmed Black man on the subway) he’d been planning a “road trip through Africa”:

“I mean, it’s, it’s a little bit comical. Everybody who’s ever met me can tell you, I love all people, I love all cultures. You can tell by my past and all my travels and adventures around the world. I was actually planning a road trip through Africa before this happened.”

It’s a little bit “comical.” That’s certainly one way to frame your violent attack on a homeless Black man who was begging for help.

Penny also speaks in the passive voice throughout the interview, referencing Neely’s death as if something he somberly witnessed instead of perpetrated with his own hands: “I’m deeply saddened by the loss of life. It’s tragic what happened to him. Hopefully, we can change the system that’s so desperately failed us,” Penny said. Asked if he feels he has anything to be ashamed of, Penny roundly said nah: “I don’t, I mean, I always do what I think is right.”

*snip*

[sakabatou]

1. Ah, yes, the "black best friend" excuse.

[Aristus]

5. He's even basically drafting an entire continent into his criminal defense.

Look, Your Honor; I can't be racist! I have an entire continent of best friends!"

[Tetrachloride]

2. What roads ? Sudan ? Madagascar ? Constantinople ? Library of Alexandria?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

10. None of those places. He said he was going to AFRICA! Not Sudan or any Libary in Alexandria.

Constantinople? Isn't that a flavor of ice cream?

[Tetrachloride]

11. I'll ask my Istanbul friend

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

13. Good, if he's not being busy in Byzantium nt

[maxsolomon]

3. I think he'll be convicted of Man 2.

I don't think there will be a hate crime charge.

[johnp3907]

4. "It's tragic what happened to him."

Like an accident happened or something. The guy is totally delusional!

[Hortensis]

6. Is there reason to think he intended to kill Jordan Neely, or

believed he might be killing him and continued with depraved indifference to his life?

A 24-year-old ex-Marine imagined his martial arts training qualified him to control another person, and he was tragically wrong. But intention is the difference between manslaughter and murder.

I don't see that any of us can have any idea. And to take a position based on political and racial biases -- with the future of a second young man at stake -- would also be depraved indifference to life. tRump did exactly that with the "Central Park Five."

Fortunately for ourselves, we have no reason to take a position without truth to base it on. That'd be very wrong.

[MagickMuffin]

7. "I don't, I mean, I always do what I think is right."

So, whenever Daniel Penny decides something isn’t right according to his logic, you could be next person put in a chokehold until your very last once of fight has left your body, because Daniel Penny has decided he is right!

[gratuitous]

8. And he lives on Planet Earth

Do you know how many Black people live on Earth, too? I'll tell you: Pretty much all of them. So how un-racist can Penny be?

[Hortensis]

9. If no one rushes to assume the black cops so often involved in

cop murders are acting out their racism when the victims are black, how is it that some, dependably, rush to assume with 100% certainty in spite of extreme ignorance that 100% of white killers are 100% motivated by racism?

How is this not terribly racist? And not terribly wrong?

Just admitting that we don't know and want to wait for information, even or especially when social media mobs are liable to attack as a result, is taking a principled stand.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

16. It's a subtle difference, but I believe it would be much more accurate to describe his actions as

done in the service of white supremacy rather than racism. Policing others is rooted in white supremacy -- the concept that there is one social standard and it must be upheld at all costs, whether it's by a professional force or through vigilante action.

[Ace Rothstein]

12. Has he done or said anything to suggest he's racist?

Not every negative interaction between people of different races is due to racism.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

14. He choked a black man to death for no good reason?

It’s not looking good for the “not racist” thingy…

[Ace Rothstein]

15. Again, nothing so far suggests he did it because of race.

He might be racist, I don't know. Not every time a white person commits a crime against a black person or a black person against a white person is due to racism.

[Torchlight]

17. He's deftly skating the edge

but after he goes all in, he removes any remaining doubt I may have had with the "I was actually planning a road trip through Africa..."

The variations on "some of my best friends are X" is to me, a loud tell.