I want to believe in the American justice system. I spent years as a new immigrant obsessively watching Law & Order. It’s a beautiful system, and we all need it to work.
Seeing these terrible, politicized prosecutions where the defendant is referred to in court not by his name but, again and again and again, as “the white man” is killing that faith. The wall-to-wall media propaganda that already influenced and terrorized juries in the past stacks the deck against anybody who is disliked by the aggressively BLMing chattering classes. And it’s particularly appalling that the same prosecutors who unleashed Neely on peaceful New Yorkers were punishing Penny for their own failings. Neely had been arrested dozens of times, most recently for violently assaulting a 67-year-old woman and shattering bones in her face. He was on that subway car, threatening to murder passengers. They all testified they were terrified. A mother was trying to shelter her toddler behind a stroller. Nobody cared about these peaceful, utterly blameless people.
The police that arrived at the scene while Neely was still alive refused to do CPR because he was dirty and icky. Once again, the system failed but Penny was blamed for a preventable death that police chose not to prevent.
The judge was playing so openly and shamelessly on the prosecution’s side that even the initially deadlocked jury realized what was happening and refused to participate in the sham. And the really sad thing is that we are all surprised. Nobody expected a New York jury to do the reasonable thing.
We are being deprived of the most basic services we want to count on. The police doesn’t police, unhinged drug addicts make going out in large cities unpleasant and dangerous. I was in Chicago for a conference a few weeks ago and I didn’t manage to leave the hotel for the duration because every time I stepped outside I observed scenes that made me want to head back to my room. And we are getting blamed for defending ourselves from the chaos that’s unleashed on us! We are told to sit quietly and apologetically while we are bathed in neoliberal gore (not my term but I like it). We don’t have money for mansions, gated communities and limousines that would protect us from this dysfunction. Yet we are lectured by those who barricaded themselves against the chaos about the unacceptable nature of our lack of eagerness to become its victims. We are bamboozled by stories of racial guilt to accept our dispossession.
But once, just once, 12 people in New York said, “no, we aren’t falling for it again.”
And that’s what gives me joy.
Clarissa's Blog 
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