A substack post last week by Jemar Tisby on Jordan Neely is so typical of woke deception, and of Tisby, that it is practically stereotypical. Heck it could almost pass for satire. But it is instructive, though not how Tisby intended. And I have an additional reason for us to look at it, so let’s get to it.
I will leave aside that he does that tired tactic of using an old photo of Neely before he became a criminal. (Pictured above.) Yes, use cute photos of criminals from their childhood or just after and portray them as victims. Maybe whenever we talk about El Chapo or Al Capone, we should use their baby photos. They were adorable I’m sure. Anyway Tisby’s brief post begins:
Jordan Neely used to dress up and do Michael Jackson impersonations. But on May 1, 2023, a Marine veteran on a subway train put him in a chokehold that led to his death. Neely had allegedly been shouting on the train about how he was thirsty, hungry, and tired of his situation.
Neely was also shouting chilling threats to those in the subway car. Tisby conveniently left that out. He also conveniently left out that he was notorious as a danger on the subways, had been arrested 44 times, had punched a 67 year women in the face, fracturing bones, and had been charged numerous times for other assaults.
This is typical of Tisby and the woke. They deceive by willfully leaving out context and omitting inconvenient facts. For example, when I reviewed his book, How to Fight Racism, I found he did this from the start:
The second page he cites “Mike Brown’s death at the hands of a white police officer in Ferguson” without mentioning Brown attacked said officer and was reaching for the officer’s gun. Then he decries “the response of law enforcement, who came out with tanks, guns, body armor, and tear gas against people protesting for basic dignity and rights.” He conveniently left out the rioting and looting. So right off, the discerning reader can see Jemar Tisby deals in half-truths in an inflammatory manner.
Deception by omission is part and parcel of Tisby’s grift.
Continuing from Tisby’s post:
Neely should not have been killed. He suffered from homelessness and mental illness and the system failed him, we failed him, long before the day of his death.
Tisby gets something right though probably not in the way he intended. The City of New York has no-cash bail and allows predators to roam the subways even after several have pushed people onto the lines. A few have been murdered this way. One on Reddit posted that Neely attempted to push him off a subway platform unto the train lines. For the sake of himself and the public, Neely should already have been in jail or in a mental hospital. So, yes. the Democrat-run system failed.
Tisby then promotes a podcast and states:
We talk about why attacks against the houseless population . . .
Tisby uses the latest woke euphemism, “houseless”, of course, and conflates self-defense with “attacks.” Look, right here I have to give Jemar Tisby credit. The man can pack so much woke deception and deflection in so few words!
. . . should be classified as hate crimes . . .
So Tisby apparently thinks the Marine who defended others on the subway, Daniel Penny, and who knows how many others who defend against “houseless” threats and attacks, should be charged with hate crimes.
But what is more outrageous than Tisby’s willful deceptions and attacks are that churches continue to platform and promote him. Take Todd Hunter, Bishop of the Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others (C4SO) in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). He is promoting Tisby in glowing terms as part of his podcast: “It has taken me a lifetime to discover what Jemar knows: Such rootedness in Jesus will inevitably take me down the path to loving my neighbor, seeking their good, & procuring justice on their behalf.”
Make me vomit.
Hunter is not alone among ACNA bishops in promoting Tisby. And Hunter’s diocese has even pushed Liberation Theology. This in an outwardly orthodox denomination.
But this is far from just an ACNA problem. It is a problem even in the Southern Baptist Convention and the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) of all places. If your church is in a U. S. denomination of significant size, your church is probably being used to push woke deceptions, smears and lies. Your church is being used to target good people like Daniel Penny. Your freedoms to defend the truth and to defend yourself and those around you are targeted as well.
What are you going to do about it? Just sitting in the pews and dropping your offerings in the plate isn’t cutting it. It is enabling it.
