BY JEANETTE LENOIR
A troubled man was choked to death on a New York train in Lower Manhattan this week and the city didn’t even skip a beat as District Attorney Alvin Bragg hastily decided the snuffing out of a sick, hungry and tired Black man was justified, if not welcome. After first deciding not to file charges against the wannabe white savior, Bragg hit reverse when the public cried foul after video of the horrific incident made its way to the internet for the world to bear witness, once again, to the callous killing of a Black man.
“If folks can’t imagine you as human, all the policy in the world is irrelevant.” – Ta-Nehisi Coates
Adding to this normal tragic occurrence in the American Black experience, Neely’s own mother, 36-year-old Christie Neely, was choked to death by her boyfriend in 2007 when he was only 14-years-old, according to a 2012 report by the Star-Ledger. 
His mother’s body was stuffed in a suitcase and dumped on Henry Hudson Parkway. Imagine a young boy, just 14, having to live with this trauma, facing societal rejection, pressure and historical disadvantages simply because he was born a Black boy in America.
At this trajectory in our human experience as Black people, the only thing left is to ask: Which one of our Black souls is next?
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