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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: massmike

it’s 2016 ... slavery still exists around the world. Real live slavery ... but I doubt the worst of it is in New Haven.


61 posted on 07/14/2016 12:07:50 PM PDT by Coffee... Black... No Sugar (I'm gonna' BICKER!)
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To: massmike

Isn’t hiring a black man to be a janitor kind of racist too? s/


62 posted on 07/14/2016 12:09:35 PM PDT by Huskrrrr
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To: Mr. Mojo

Wow, open season on destroying university property without penalty!!

Oh wait, only if one is of the SJW snowflake variety.


63 posted on 07/14/2016 12:11:13 PM PDT by Enchante (Hillary's new campaign slogan: "Guilty as hell, free as a bird!! Laws are for peasants!")
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To: massmike
“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.


64 posted on 07/14/2016 12:11:32 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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To: massmike

Like most grandmothers, yours was a very wise woman. I’d love to hear some more of that kind of wisdom these days. Unfortunately, all we get today is mostly bloviation, a la Obama.


65 posted on 07/14/2016 12:14:06 PM PDT by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: utahagen

Not toomention a trip to the white house to meet the black mussolini.


66 posted on 07/14/2016 12:17:35 PM PDT by longfellow (Bill Maher, the 21st hijacker.)
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To: massmike
“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.”

So quit.

The window was a piece of art. But because this man’s fragile little mind was upset he felt it his right to destroy the window. This man was never a slave, has likely never known or even met a slave.

Given the man’s age he has never even experienced Jim Crowe segregation so what does he have to be upset about?

The man should be held responsible for his actions. Anything else is the soft bigotry of low expectations.

67 posted on 07/14/2016 12:17:36 PM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.)
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To: miss marmelstein

...because it didn’t fit HIS agenda.....to be famous ( in his eyes)


68 posted on 07/14/2016 12:17:52 PM PDT by Doogle (( USAF.68-73..8th TFW Ubon Thailand..never store a threat you should have eliminated))
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To: MNDude
"That window was so much more valuable than his life"

Every day more and more folks are coming to this realization, but on a mass scale.

A stained glass window didn't burgle my neighbor's house. A stained glass window did not attempt to carjack another neighbor in his driveway.

69 posted on 07/14/2016 12:18:31 PM PDT by T-Bone Texan (Don't be a lone wolf. Form up small leaderlesss cells ASAP !)
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To: ConservativeWarrior
Leave it to Yale to make dishwasher a “post”.

If it was Yale then he was a tenured dishwasher.

70 posted on 07/14/2016 12:19:45 PM PDT by seawolf101
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To: utahagen
How much do you want to be he gets his job back?

Probably with back pay, a raise and a settlement for the emotional trauma he was forced to suffer.

71 posted on 07/14/2016 12:19:46 PM PDT by pgkdan (The Silent Majority Stands With TRUMP!)
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To: kaehurowing

YEP...I buy old history and school books.


72 posted on 07/14/2016 12:21:23 PM PDT by goodnesswins (Alinsky.....it's what's for dinner: with Cloward Piven for Dessert)
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To: utahagen

Was JohnC Calhoun a Democrat?


73 posted on 07/14/2016 12:23:47 PM PDT by ballplayer (hvexx NKK c bmytit II iyijjhihhiyyiyiyi it iyiiy II i hi jiihi ty yhiiyihiijhijjyjiyjiiijyuiiijihyii)
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To: BookmanTheJanitor
The worse kind of racism.

The soft bigotry of low expectations. If I were the recipient I would find it the most offensive and demeaning thing I could imagine. Now it's ok because free stuff comes with it.

74 posted on 07/14/2016 12:23:47 PM PDT by pgkdan (The Silent Majority Stands With TRUMP!)
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To: massmike

He should do serious jail time for this.

Instead of working within the system and getting a sign put up which puts the window in context, he destroyed property b\c he didn’t want to see it.

There’s lots of things i don’t want to see yet am forced to.

So his right to destroy is sacrosanct because he’s in a protected class? SMH


75 posted on 07/14/2016 12:24:40 PM PDT by sauropod (Beware the fury of a patient man. I've lost my patience!)
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To: massmike

I’m sure the KKK wants all portrayals of slavery to be eradicated.

Well done, punk. You are doing the freaking KKKs job for them!


76 posted on 07/14/2016 12:25:57 PM PDT by piytar (http://www.truthrevolt.org/videos/bill-whittle-number-one-bullet)
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To: seawolf101

haha... you’re right!


77 posted on 07/14/2016 12:26:23 PM PDT by ConservativeWarrior (Fall down 7 times, stand up 8. - Japanese proverb)
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To: mbarker12474

Are you even on the same planet?!!!?

Just because it is a stained glass window in a bldg does NOT equal celebration of slavery!


78 posted on 07/14/2016 12:27:51 PM PDT by sauropod (Beware the fury of a patient man. I've lost my patience!)
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To: mbarker12474
Slavery romanticization should be vandalized.

Only if the person who vandalizes also owns the object he's going to vandalize.

???????????????????????????????????????????????????

79 posted on 07/14/2016 12:32:33 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Half the truth is often a great lie. B. Franklin)
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To: Mr. Mojo

Black privilege.


80 posted on 07/14/2016 12:37:15 PM PDT by IronJack
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