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.
How else would you portray slavery? Showing them lounging on a beach somewhere? What a moron.
The janitor never bothered looking up in all his years on the job. More than likely, it was a professor who sought out the janitor and pointed out the windows to him. Better the janitor do the dirty work for the professor and lose his menial job. A professor, on the other hand, is much too important of a role in the liberal grand scheme.
I don’t know... Books are so hard to get a hold of these days. It’s easier to get a Glock. They are flooding our communities, you know.
Well with that thinking, The pyramids and sphinx should be demolished as they are the product of slave labor. What do you bet this SJW would cry at the prospect of destruction of those African monuments?
You forgot to mention that the racist president Woodrow Wilson has his finger prints all over Yale.
This man offends me, what do folks suggest I do to him?
At least in 2016, the human brain is not full developed until one’s mid-20s. The last part to develop is that which is involved in judgment and responsibility—a truly adult quality. Thus the 18-year-old vote was and is a mistake.
The ability to exercise adult judgment and responsibility of course requires training. If universities are characterized by “safe spaces” and concern for “triggering”, “microaggession” and political correctness, it’s VERY hard to experience this training.
That’s why some students in their early 20s who are “SJWs” act extremely infantilized—even acting out like a typical 6-month-old baby!!!! I’m sure that you’ve seen videos of this behavior, which are difficult for me to watch.
When we can finally return to an economy in which graduating American seniors can expect to find decent jobs, and when they are expected to fulfill responsible roles in society, I imagine that this type of pathological behavior will end very fast!!!!
That’s Princeton! But he was originally a Southron, not a Yankee!
The window did neither, but he broke property that did not belong to him. He should be tried and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. “Good for him” is a completely despicable comment.
Are you being sarcastic? I hope you're not serious.
progressives = violence
You’re right but he still gave several speeches there.
I had the same idea. When I visited the south for the first time 45 years ago, I saw black people working in fields (I doubt it was cotton but I could be wrong) and was astonished how times hadn’t changed that much.
The more I look at this artwork, the more impressive it seems. The colors seem quite muted. Would love to see a clearer photograph.
But this story really is not about a misled employee of Yale. It is about the sickness in education & the media, which has diverted so many from normal pursuits, into a hate filled war against others, based not upon anything those others have done to the haters; but rather on a fantasy narrative, which reflects no understanding of history.
While the traditional agricultural labor system in much of the earth was very very far from ideal; it was not always demeaning. Whether as seen in Biblical bondsmen, European or Asian serfs, or new world slaves or transported convicts; many achieved respected status. For an obvious example, Aesop of Aesop's Fables was a slave; for another, consider some of the heroic warriors in famous battles, who were serfs, brought to the fray by their feudal masters.
One can trash what one does not understand about history, but to what end. Is there any benefit to anyone by trashing John C. Calhoun at Yale? What possible benefit? Even JFK, who was certainly no Conservative, honored Calhoun as one of the five great Senators, in his book, Profiles In Courage.
Consider, finally, two great addresses, Booker T. Washington's 1895 Address in Atlanta to White Employers Booker T. Washington Address; and John C. Calhoun's Fort Hill Address, John C. Calhoun Address.
Just a bit of a different perspective. If no one at Yale today has the intellectual integrity to speak up for Calhoun; Yale is, itself, the greatest loser in this.
With anger like that, I’d hate to see what he did to those plates he was washing...if you get my drift.
Mike, I hope your major wasn’t art history.
Now that we see it, it isn’t even clear that this was even slaves.
Was there anything in the context that would demand that this be slaves anyhow?
No.
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