Sanism, racism make U.S. black man blamed for his own death: Truthout

People take part in a protest over chokehold death of a black man in New York, the United States, May 6, 2023. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

"Add to that homelessness, and the mad Black person without property is the perfect antithesis of this violent brutal capitalist society -- they must be made to disappear by all means necessary," says Idil Abdillahi.

NEW YORK, May 7 (Xinhua) -- Anti-Black racism and the society's dehumanizing attitude toward people seen by others as "mentally ill" are on full display in the United States this week in victim-blaming narratives surrounding the murder of Jordan Neely, reported the website Truthout on Friday.

Neely, a 30-year-old Black subway rider, was choked to death by a 24-year-old white ex-Marine on the New York City subway on May 1 as other passengers looked on, said the report.

U.S. news outlets have described the murder in a way that downplays the violence of the killing and exonerated the killer by casting the lethal chokehold as somehow understandable because "there were serious mental health issues in play here," said the report.

Police officers clash with protesters during a protest over chokehold death of a black man in New York, the United States, May 6, 2023. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

"Add to that homelessness, and the mad Black person without property is the perfect antithesis of this violent brutal capitalist society -- they must be made to disappear by all means necessary," Idil Abdillahi, an assistant professor in the School of Disability Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University, was quoted as saying.

"By attending to maddening social contexts -- racism, ableism, sanism, sexism, heteropatriarchy, and more -- we begin to see the ways in which madness is not an individual 'ailment' or condition that is one person's 'fault'," she said.

"In a world where suffering is so pervasive and overlapping, Abdillahi's critical voice is indispensable," said the report, noting that the ongoing discourses of mental illness and the pathologization of blackness are affecting how Neely's killing is framed by politicians and by media.