@Waiting2exhale Ah. I see what you were getting at with “still”. Vitriol is spewing hatred, don’t exaggerate. I’m just a little defensive because this incident sets an unfair precedent yet students are celebrating this guy.
There is the sentiment that Yale treats New Haven like a plantation.
@Surfbort, I think a more apt analogy than the ones you presented earlier would be as follows. The college is named Himmler. There is a stained glass window in the dining hall depicting Jewish men and women working at a concentration camp. It’s part of history, but I wouldn’t want to look at it every day. There are multiple things that are part of history that we don’t necessarily want to be reminded of every day.
Wasn’t Yale getting ready to remove the Windows? As Hunt said, they were not sad this happened and there’s no way they would have pressed charges.
I don’t think history should be destroyed for any reason, and it serves as a reminder of the ways of the past and how much progress we have made and is essentially a way to prevent becoming complacent…That said, I can understand why it is not ideal for someone to be looking at this every day. I don’t think it is an awfull thing that the window is gone, but I think the way it was done is not acceptable.
Just immediately smashing something that offends you but doesn’t pose an immediate threat to public safety is not an acceptable way to act. A reasonable path would have been to first have a dialogue with the school officials and given the school an opportunity to address it.
What kind of lesson does Yale’s limp-wristed response send to students?
The history is not that old. It’s not like Calhoun himself agreed on the window design in the 1850s. Yale has a history of making itself look and seem older than it is, look and seem more glorious, perhaps. Yale put in “repaired” cracks in their windows and installed “repaired” walls in their newer buildings to mimic older institutions. As a result it seems now locked in a permanent fit of insecurity.
Calhoun College was built in the 1930s a time that wasn’t known for opening arms toward other races or religions worldwide. Just the opposite. It was a time when people were convinced that some races were superior. And set out to prove so often violently and with destruction
This is a piece of physical history that I suspect Yale has kept in place to placate alumni donors. There were plans to place the window away for posterity, but I’m just as glad that this piece of 1930s history set in place to mimic an ugly past, to shore up an insecure 1930s present, is gone.
Some acts of vandalism are warranted. Sometimes powers are wrong and need to go. Sometimes Berlin Walls must come down. Sometimes statues of Stalin must be toppled. Sometimes the Bastille needs to be destroyed. Sometimes plagues need to be called down before people walk free.
Destruction is also a part of history. A free man destroyed the windows, weird windows that for some reason in the 1930s, an era tainted with gross racial hatred, Yale somehow thought it was a great idea to install.
@mom2twogirls wrote
I look at that window as a reminder of what happens when humans are evil, and I think it’s important to be reminded of the fact that it takes such small steps to remove rights and liberty. If I saw that window, for me it would be a reminder that not so long ago, my grandmother couldn’t vote, and other people weren’t legally considered people, but property. That I should appreciate and continue to fight for equality.
I like to think that the guy who built that would be spinning in his grave if he saw the culturally, racially, and economically diverse kids who eat in there today. It’s like thumbing your nose at the ugliness of the past, while recognizing that it exists and it is lurking to re-establish itself if we ever forget that we’re capable of that as humans.
I do agree with @tonymom that the context and placement of the window may not be the best place to educate. Sometimes you just want to eat dinner.
The glass window had already been altered to remove the portion that showed the chattel slavery. At first glance, a person would not know its history. That being said, the re-naming issue remains to be a hot topic among alumni. However, the presence of this one window wasn’t to placate anyone in the current discussion.