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Yale Employee Smashes Historic Stained Glass Window Because ‘It’s 2016’
http://dailycaller.com/ ^ | 07/14/2016 | Blake Neff

Posted on 07/14/2016 11:28:17 AM PDT by massmike

A Yale University employee is out of a job, and the school is out a window, after he used a broomstick to smash a stained-glass window he complained was racist.

Until recently, Thomas Menafee worked as a dishwasher for Yale. But he says he grew enraged that, while working at Yale’s Calhoun College, he had to see a stained glass window which shows black laborers harvesting cotton. The window, he said, was an offensive portrayal of slavery, and so on June 13 he impulsively decided to eliminate it by force.

“I took a broomstick, and it was kind of high, and I climbed up and reached up and broke it,” he told the New Haven Independent. “It’s 2016, I shouldn’t have to come to work and see things like that.”

Menafee’s stunt was quickly discovered, and he responded by resigning his post with the college. In return, the college is not seeking compensation for the destruction and has requested that Menafee not be prosecuted.

Nevertheless, Menafee appeared in court Tuesday on a felony charge of criminal mischief along with a misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment, stemming from the fact that the window nearly injured a passing pedestrian when it came tumbling out

Menafee’s destructive act is the latest incident in the saga over Calhoun College, one of Yale’s residential colleges. The college is named for John C. Calhoun, an alumnus and South Carolina senator who was a major slavery advocate in the decades before the Civil War. Recently, activists have pushed for Yale to rename the college, while others have said renaming the college would be rewriting history for political reasons.

In April, the school announced Calhoun’s name would stay, but that it would attempt to censor any images of Calhoun so that they will not be triggering to black students. Notably, several stained glass windows portraying Calhoun himself are scheduled to be removed before the fall semester.

Because Menafee says his destruction was motivated by anti-racism, he has won the support of New Haven racial activists.

“What is more valuable to Yale: a stained-glass window of enslaved people picking cotton, or the humanity of the African-American people who work at Yale?” said John Jairo Lugo of the group Unidad Latina en Accion.


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Education; History; Local News; Society
KEYWORDS: calhouncollege; civilwar; connecticut; dishwasher; erasinghistory; liberalagenda; newhaven; slavery; stainedglasswindow; thatsracist; vandalism; yale
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To: Dalberg-Acton

101 posted on 07/14/2016 1:25:46 PM PDT by Salamander (I Aim To Maim...)
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To: Celtic Conservative
Not boomboxes...


102 posted on 07/14/2016 1:30:54 PM PDT by Salamander (I Aim To Maim...)
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To: caddie
Well, I see two things I *could* start whining about...but won't.


103 posted on 07/14/2016 1:35:35 PM PDT by Salamander (I Aim To Maim...)
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To: Salamander

Looter guy!

” When you care enough to steal the best, steal Heinekin. The choice of natural disaster looters everywhere.”

Good choice. I’ll call the people @ Tiffany’s and alert them to the changes.

CC


104 posted on 07/14/2016 1:48:19 PM PDT by Celtic Conservative (CC: purveyor of cryptic, snarky posts since December, 2000..)
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To: massmike

The left has already made him a martyr. He gets rehired and becomes another Rosa Parks.


105 posted on 07/14/2016 1:49:24 PM PDT by I want the USA back (Media: willing and eager allies of the hate-America left.)
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To: massmike

The truth is offensive to him?

When they rehire him (and you know they will), assign him as janitor of the safe space room.


106 posted on 07/14/2016 2:13:23 PM PDT by bgill (From the CDC site, "We don't know how people are infected with Ebola")
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To: massmike

If the stained glass window was based on a photo, as it probably was, it could be one from 30 or 40 years after the war ended. There is no way to tell from the depiction whether the workers are slaves, freedmen, or blacks born after the abolition of slavery.


107 posted on 07/14/2016 2:17:38 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: miss marmelstein

Not just the dishes. Think about his access to food.

More and more I am deciding to eat at home these days. The level of anger is so high I’m getting to wonder what is being served in restaurants these days.


108 posted on 07/14/2016 2:22:35 PM PDT by ladyjane
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To: massmike

Monkey See, monkey do.


109 posted on 07/14/2016 2:25:34 PM PDT by Old Yeller (Hillary is Satan's spiritual advisor.)
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To: massmike

Depictions of negroes engaged in productive labor and contributing to the economy of the time-—racist.
Depictions of negroes with gold teeth, holding wads of cash while pointing a gun sideways and making weird hand gestures—that’s relevant black culture. Because -—it’s 2016.


110 posted on 07/14/2016 2:31:11 PM PDT by mumblypeg (Make America Sane Again.)
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To: kaehurowing

Prepping = collecting books.


111 posted on 07/14/2016 2:38:14 PM PDT by mumblypeg (Make America Sane Again.)
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To: Hillarys Gate Cult

“BTW I can find nothing on the history of these windows. Can some black craftsman have made them?”

Think of the plantation homes and pretty much everything in them. Take a stroll thru the French quarter and look at all those cast iron balconies and beautiful millwork and unique doorways. The gorgeous statuary of angels and saints in the cemeteries. All this is the artisanry of black men, both slave and free.
The writer Anne Rice, best known for her vampire books, has searched extensive archives about these artisans, and has written about them.

It was quite common for slave owners to grant freedom to the more talented and ambitious of the slaves—even before the Civil War— precisely because these could set up shop and earn their own way.
These freedmen were celebrated and were far more prosperous than the white common laborers.


112 posted on 07/14/2016 3:00:27 PM PDT by mumblypeg (Make America Sane Again.)
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To: goodnesswins

Me too, always with the thought that there are forces afoot who want to destroy all this, all knowledge of the past.


113 posted on 07/14/2016 3:02:41 PM PDT by mumblypeg (Make America Sane Again.)
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To: ladyjane

I don’t blame you one bit, ladyjane.


114 posted on 07/14/2016 3:03:40 PM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard the Third: With my own people alone I should like to drive away the Muslims)
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To: Verginius Rufus

Well, to paraphrase Oscar Madison, ‘Now those stained windows are garbage.”


115 posted on 07/14/2016 3:05:22 PM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard the Third: With my own people alone I should like to drive away the Muslims)
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To: mumblypeg

Remember when Toyota had an ad showing someone having a gold Toyota symbol on his tooth? Even though you couldn’t really see anything beyond the teeth, Jesse Jackson denounced Toyota for racism and Toyota paid out a huge amount of money for his to shut up and leave them alone...probably figured a protracted controversy would cost them even more. Classic Jesse shakedown. I promised myself I would never buy a new Toyota after that because I didn’t want some of the money to end up in Jesse’s wallet.


116 posted on 07/14/2016 4:54:31 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: massmike

Yeah, kid, Mao Tse-tung did the same thing, just a bit earlier.

They called it the Cultural Revolution.

Go for it, you effing Idiot.


117 posted on 07/14/2016 11:17:28 PM PDT by Jack Hammer
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Ignorant scumbag.


118 posted on 07/14/2016 11:20:52 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: Jack Hammer

A punk worth less than cannon fodder


119 posted on 07/14/2016 11:26:21 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: massmike
And, now he's been offered his job back. WTF?

http://www.nhregister.com/general-news/20160719/yale-offers-ex-worker-who-broke-racist-image-window-a-new-job-menafees-lawyer-says-hes-delighted-to-accept

120 posted on 07/20/2016 5:11:15 AM PDT by Puppage (You may disagree with what I have to say, but I shall defend to your death my right to say it)
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