I, Too

Last week, Jordan Neely was killed on a New York City (NYC) subway train by another passenger, Daniel Penny. While the facts of what transpired on that train continue to emerge, what we know for certain is that Daniel Penny killed Jordan Neely with a chokehold.

On the heels of this tragedy, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an end to the global COVID health emergency, and Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States, resigned. For me, the thread that connects each of these is the failure of our leadership to make decisions that support and affirm life.

In Jordan Neely’s case, Mayor Adams failed Jordan the moment he decided not to direct resources to Housing First – an approach with ample research on its effectiveness in stabilizing those who are experiencing homelessness. Instead, Mayor Adams decided to deputize the NYPD to forcefully hospitalize individuals who appear to be mentally ill and unable to attend to their own basic needs, regardless of whether they are posing an actual threat to themselves or anyone else.

In the World Health Organization’s case, our global community failed to implement an equitable COVID vaccine rollout across the globe, leaving the global majority unprotected. The chart below shows the inequities in full vaccination rates by country’s income:

As the WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, stated in his remarks:

We have the tools and the technologies to prepare for pandemics better, to detect them earlier, to respond to them faster, and to mitigate their impact. But globally, a lack of coordination, a lack of equity and a lack of solidarity meant that those tools were not used as effectively as they could have been. Lives were lost that should not have been.

In Rochelle Walensky’s case, the United States failed to institute masking and ventilation requirements that ensure all members of our society can equitably participate without risking death and disability, especially in health care facilities. What’s infuriating here is that we have an example of the CDC doing exactly this in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic – it’s what we now know as universal precautions.

We can point to a multitude of decisions across these three instances that long predate the failures of those who are currently charged with cleaning up the mess. However, the moment we are granted with the authority to take a different course of action, we cannot continue to point fingers and place blame on what came before, especially when our own decisions continue to perpetuate the status quo. Also, while there are specific communities who are bearing the brunt of each of these leadership failures, we all ultimately pay the price. If anything, our unhoused neighbors, the global majority, and our immunocompromised and disabled brethren are the sign of what we all will eventually face if our leaders continue to make decisions that assign differential value to human life.

I live in NYC. Having grown up here, I have had my fair share of subway experiences and for as long as I continue to live here, I know I will continue to do so. As Roxane Gay wrote, I cannot be certain of what I would have done if I was in that subway car the day that Jordan Neely was killed. What I can say, however, is that if NYC and our society writ-large had systems in place that were grounded in a recognition of and love for everyone’s humanity, Jordan Neely would still be alive.