Daniel Penny, a 26-year-old Marine Corps veteran, was found not guilty Monday of criminally negligent homicide by a jury in the 2023 death of Jordan Neely. While millions of people were invested in the outcome of Penny’s trial, the primary driver of public interest was only partially about the jury’s eventual verdict.

Verdicts in the court of law are influenced by facts, evidence, and legal arguments. Unlike legal proceedings, however, the court of public opinion is driven by narratives that often elevate people from individuals to political symbols who represent something far more important in the cultural zeitgeist. I reached a verdict I didn’t expect after reading the conservative commentary surrounding this case.

It is possible to act nobly and bravely and still be held liable by the legal system.

Daniel Penny is the conservative right’s George Floyd.

This comparison is not about personal biography. The two men couldn’t be farther apart in that regard. They do, however, share a great deal as symbols of injustice and racial persecution to their most passionate defenders.

To the left, Floyd was the living embodiment of the historical oppression black men have faced in America at the hands of racist police. They saw his death as a modern-day lynching, a dynamic that cast Officer Derek Chauvin as the callous, indifferent hangman.

Progressives weren’t interested in any discussion about the impact of drugs on Floyd’s health or how his behavior influenced the response from law enforcement. George Floyd represented everything they believed about the racism baked into the criminal justice system. To them, his life and death embodied the struggles of an oppressed minority.

Daniel Penny has been hailed as a hero by conservatives for stepping in to keep Jordan Neely from harming passengers on their train. To them, Penny is the embodiment of the currentpersecution of white males in American society. While commentary about anti-white bias is typically confined to stories about human resources managers rejecting white applicants and racial preference schemes at selective universities, many of Penny’s supporters see him as a victim of the systemic racism being practiced today by overzealous progressive prosecutors. To them, his arrest and prosecution by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg embodied the plight of an oppressed majority.

While it is tempting to view both men through color-coded lenses, the narratives constructed around them have been built with the tools of politics and race — in that order. Blue and black on one side. Red and white on the other. Politics lights the fire. Race fans the flames.

The tribal nature of American society also makes both sides resistant to anything that challenges the preferred narrative. The idea that there could never be a “white George Floyd” was blown up once people learned about the death of Tony Timpa.

Likewise, the people quickest to invoke race as the driving force in Penny’s arrest likely don’t know self-defense claims didn’t keep Jordan Williams — a black man — from being arrested and charged with manslaughter after the fatal stabbing of Devictor Ouedraogo on a New York City subway train in June 2023. Williams had charges against him dropped after witnesses claimed Ouedraogo physically assaulted passengers, including Williams' girlfriend.

No one should be surprised by either side’s blind spots. Politics and race influence not only media attention but also the intensity of reaction to stories.

Some progressives tried to paint Penny as a white supremacist vigilante even though no evidence suggested racial animus motivated his actions. But the narrative that emerged on the right that Penny was only charged because of systemic racism against white men is evidence that conservatives are just as susceptible to confirmation bias as their liberal counterparts.

Addressing the depths of the human condition is never easy, especially in a city of over 8 million people. New York City subways serve as informal homeless camps and mental health facilities for far too many people. Many of the trains reek of human waste. I’m sure many New Yorkers of every color appreciate men like Daniel Penny willing to defend other people from danger.

That doesn’t change the fact that part of the government’s job is to determine the circumstances under which one person can take the life of another. Murder is a different charge with different penalties from homicide. Self-defense protects people who take a life because their own is in danger. The notion that you can choke a loud, belligerent person — even one who’s mentally ill — from behind and not face any legal consequence is influenced far more by politics than a careful reading of the law.

I don’t view Daniel Penny as a hero. Neither do I see him as a villain. I look at Penny as a man who believed he was acting with good intentions in trying to defend a train full of people from a mentally ill man. But it is possible to act nobly and bravely and still be held liable by the legal system.

The left blames “anti-black racism” when black men die at the hands of a white person. The right blames “anti-white racism” when white men face trial during fatal interracial encounters. Both sides resist anything that challenges their narratives because being an aggrieved victim today comes with social, cultural, and political benefits.

The biggest loser in this cultural tug-of-war is the American people. Police misconduct, political prosecutions, homelessness, and mental illness are all serious matters that deserve rational, objective policy responses. Unfortunately, political tribalism continues to make it difficult to address any of these problems on a bipartisan basis.