Corey Menafee and The Goodness in Breaking Stuff
To Corey Menafee, George Floyd and the countless other Black people who became activists, whether they wanted to or not.
Written by: Maya Layne
Once in a blue moon, my mind drifts and wanders to Corey Menafee. I’ve never tried to write about the impression his story made on me before but now seems to be an apt time to put words down in his honor. Menafee worked in the dining hall at Yale University, a prestigious college that like most, has a long history of colonialism, racism, and all the other isms that kill, maim and punish people in the name of white supremacist patriarchy. A Black custodian cleaning up after mostly privileged, white students, day after day.
Menafee cleaned Calhoun College, named after a white slave owner and former VP at Yale whose name I won’t be mentioning for the rest of this article. Menafee worked in a dining hall that had a stained glass window depicting slaves in the fields with bales of cotton. One day he took the broom he used to sweep, and smashed it.
This stained glass window loomed over Menafee’s head, a constant reminder that Black bodies are made to work, to be bent over bales of cotton and dust pans and mop buckets. It’s how it’s always been, sorry! It was nothing other than a threat encased in colored glass. Please do remember your place. The religious connotations of stained glass aren’t lost on me either — they typically depict biblical imagery. Hovering above him, the glass gleamed about the sacredness of Black servitude.
Menafee and his Lawyer outside of New Haven Superior Court in 2016. Image Source: NBC News
Black people are quite obviously still maimed, murdered and punished. We turn on the news and see deadly reminders of our place in society. Right now, people are looting, they’re breaking stuff, they’re angry. And many say they want peaceful protest, they want us to speak sweetly while a knee crushes our windpipe or we struggle against a chokehold. White people have handmade evils just for us – are we supposed to pretend that that’s a gift to be grateful for?
Don’t tell me that breaking things isn’t useful. Yale students and faculty complained about the stained glass for years and nothing came of it – until Menafee. He shattered an image that celebrated Black captivity. Menafee and the slaves no longer stuck seeing each other, being held in a singular moment of bitter work, knowing what they know about the many shades of oppression. This has never been a secret; people pay attention when you break stuff.
The sound of glass shattering, whether it’s stained glass or a Target window, seems to ring in a way that the human voice does not. I won’t even pretend to be surprised it carries so well. This country has a long history of trying to protect its property. Now the old human property they lost is coming back to take some for themselves.
Menafee reminds us of the radical potential of disobedience. This is especially true for Black people who come from a lineage where disobedience meant death – and still does.
Please know this: you do not truly want peace if your peace is contingent on passivity.
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Cover Image: Stained glass window in Calhoun College at Yale University. Source: Inside Higher Ed
