by Matthew Hennessey
Crisis Magazine
The headline was not unlike many that I see in my Twitter feed: Yale Black Men’s Union Send Message “To My Unborn Son.” I follow a fair amount of Catholic priests, pro-life Christian writers, and disability advocates, so I honestly expected the accompanying story to be about a courageous campus protest by some idealistic young Ivy Leaguers—perhaps outside an abortion clinic in New Haven, where Yale is located and where the population is 35 percent African American. But, alas, the story beneath the headline was just the latest in a string of stories covering protests inspired by the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. In this case, the editorialists at the Hartford Courant, Connecticut’s biggest newspaper, were directing readers to a “remarkable photo essay” by Yale student Eno Inyangete. The essay—which is actually just a Tumblr page—features members of the Yale College Black Men’s Union holding whiteboards bearing messages addressed “To My Unborn Son.”
“Stand up,” reads one sign. “They won’t remember your humanity unless you remind them.”
“I hope the system you live under isn’t geared towards the destruction of a black man’s image and that you’ll be seen as a human—not a pigment,” reads another.
continue reading at http://www.crisismagazine.com
Matthew Hennessey is a writer from New Canaan, CT, and a graduate of Hunter College and Fordham University. You can follow him on Twitter @matthennessey.
The headline was not unlike many that I see in my Twitter feed: Yale Black Men’s Union Send Message “To My Unborn Son.” I follow a fair amount of Catholic priests, pro-life Christian writers, and disability advocates, so I honestly expected the accompanying story to be about a courageous campus protest by some idealistic young Ivy Leaguers—perhaps outside an abortion clinic in New Haven, where Yale is located and where the population is 35 percent African American. But, alas, the story beneath the headline was just the latest in a string of stories covering protests inspired by the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. In this case, the editorialists at the Hartford Courant, Connecticut’s biggest newspaper, were directing readers to a “remarkable photo essay” by Yale student Eno Inyangete. The essay—which is actually just a Tumblr page—features members of the Yale College Black Men’s Union holding whiteboards bearing messages addressed “To My Unborn Son.”
“Stand up,” reads one sign. “They won’t remember your humanity unless you remind them.”
“I hope the system you live under isn’t geared towards the destruction of a black man’s image and that you’ll be seen as a human—not a pigment,” reads another.
continue reading at http://www.crisismagazine.com
Matthew Hennessey is a writer from New Canaan, CT, and a graduate of Hunter College and Fordham University. You can follow him on Twitter @matthennessey.
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