Worker Smashes Racist Panel - Loses Job [View all]
An African-American dishwasher lost his job after losing his cool and breaking a stained-glass panel in Yale’s Calhoun residential college dining hall that depicted slaves carrying bales of cotton.
The dishwasher, Corey Menafee, said he used a broomstick to knock the panel to the floor. He said he was tired of looking at the “racist, very degrading” image.
City police arrested Menafee, who now faces a felony charge. The university, meanwhile, has cut ties with him. (It was not officially clear Monday afternoon how exactly that happened.) (UPDATE - the charges were dropped, and he is now said to have 'resigned').
His actions provide the latest chapter in a contentious debate over the racially charged symbolism of the college, named for slavery advocate and former U.S. Vice-President John C. Calhoun. The debate gathered steam last summer with a petition demanding a name change, and has since grown to encompass the slavery-themed paintings, artifacts, and stained-glass tiles displayed in the college. In April, Yale President Peter Salovey announced that Yale will keep the Calhoun name despite a year-long campaign by students and faculty calling for it to be changed.
“I took a broomstick, and it was kind of high, and I climbed up and reached up and broke it,” he said. “It’s 2016, I shouldn’t have to come to work and see things like that.”
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/corey_menafee/
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