Chris Sokolowski should look more deeply into issues he asks about than his letter (March 3) indicates he has done. “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance — that principle is contempt prior to investigation,” wrote philosopher Herbert Spencer. This principle flourishes at Iowa State, fed by an administration rejecting scholarly inquiry by The September 29th Movement without investigation.

Sokolowski’s first question asked why the name of Catt Hall was such a problem to The Movement. The naming process excluded women of color. When Catt’s politically racist, xenophobic and classist views surfaced, administration officials chose to cover up. Sokolowski should read “Carrie Chapman Catt, a Bigot?: It’s a Conclusion That’s Hard to Avoid” (Des Moines Register, July 11, 1993) by Iowa historian Louise Noun, written before there was a Movement.

Two women of color first spoke out about Catt in September 1995. They felt ignored by the naming process and dishonored. Thirty-one months later, they — and the movement that grew around their exclusion and pain — are still ignored, still told that their carefully researched views are insignificant, still told that only the unsubstantiated views of the president count.

Naming a building after Catt, without including the entire community, reinforces a monocultural environment. ISU-style diversity keeps “others” voiceless in decisions that affect them. ISU-style diversity has an Asian-American attorney, Latina affirmative action director (“freedom of speech is a gray area at ISU”), Latino minority student affairs director and African-American vice president of student affairs (“don’t bite the hand that feeds you”) who reinforce oppressive policies determined by white males of privilege.

Sokolowski said students’ protesting in the president’s office was “hindering their education.” There were mostly high GPAs among the students sitting in President Jischke’s office. The Movement may very well seem “senseless” to people who choose not to educate themselves about the subject. (Our Web site is www.public.iastate.edu/~nyne/september29/. We also have research in Parks Library’s special collection department.) Contempt prior to investigation.

Sokolowski believes there are “many other things in this world which can have greater impacts on humanity if they are changed.” Apparently bigotry isn’t important, nor are symbols of bigotry.

To quote and paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr: “[Sokolowski] deplore(s) the demonstrations that are presently taking place [at Iowa State]. But I am sorry that [his] statement did not express a similar concern for the conditions that brought the demonstrations into being … it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of [racism] to say, ‘Wait.'”

Finally, and revealingly, Sokolowski patronizingly advised me to “get off my high horse” and “maybe even get a degree,” all because I am outspoken in defense of my constitutional right to peacefully seek redress from a public official named Martin Jischke. I’m a grad student with a B.A. degree and several awards. I felt a certain smug, privileged arrogance in Sokolowski that assumed I am probably unqualified, and certainly not as good of a student as he is.

As far as being on a high horse, I understand the revulsion and fear many white Americans have of outspoken men of color — Malcolm X, Cesar Chavez, Russell Banks — who have the temerity to act as free men, who fight for their rights, think for themselves, and who are not to be cowed by anyone. Except for Frederick Douglass, every outspoken black man I’ve studied in U.S. history who received national attention was either killed, imprisoned or forced to live in exile.

The list is long, winding through this century alone from W.E.B. DuBois to Mumia Abu-Jamal. Sokolowski longs for quieter voices, acquiescent voices who “live with things.” I long to contribute even a fraction of what men like Paul Robeson and James Baldwin have contributed, more if God wills it so.

Men like Douglass, DuBois, Malcolm and others are the bridges that brought me across. (Women have been bridges, too, but sick as this nation has been, it’s been less willing to kill or imprison them. The supremacist sickness manifested in other abusive ways, then was projected on to hapless black males who ended up castrated, hanging from trees and thrown into swamps.) With every breath I take, I will honor these bridges.

The Sokolowskis of this world (and the Benjamin Studenskis and the Robert Zeises), petty tyrants in training, will try avidly to preserve the status quo, so conflict with them is inevitable. Even if I stand alone, I will pray each day to keep advancing, knowing that a table will be prepared for me in the presence of my enemies. I ask no quarter; I will give none, for I understand the nature of war.

Sokolowski, and those who agree with him, should listen to Herbert Spencer’s words and organize an argument around a principle other than contempt prior to investigation.

Milton McGriff is a graduate student in creative writing and a member of The September 29th Movement’s Central Committee.