I’d like to say something about Carrie Chapman Catt, so if everyone’s heard too much already, feel free to skip over.

This is a free country — you have the right to feel apathy. Unfortunately, apathy has been one of the largest contributors in the furthering of oppression. Not that it’s been the cause of it; ignorance seems to do that well enough.

But it keeps the oppressed from being heard, or if they are heard, it keeps them from being addressed.

I’m not about to claim this issue is an issue of oppression. It isn’t. Nobody’s rights have been violated (except for those who were punished last year for sitting in Beardshear). And as far as I know, nobody’s been beat up or lynched from this.

It is ironic, though, how this issue has been argued in fashions intended to mislead the public that this is merely a black/white thing. It’s been routinely and categorically denied responses or audiences and generally berated by people who don’t know what this issue is about.

“So she made a comment or two, way back when, and it was all for the good of women everywhere.” BULL. The very organization which she founded chose not to use several of her statements because THEY thought the passages were racist, classist and xenophobic.

She openly trashed women from southern Europe for the furthering of her “cause.” She suggested taking back the vote from black men and giving it to white upper/middle class women (for the furthering of white supremacy). She suggested that working-class women wouldn’t necessarily have to be included, since they weren’t informed or educated.

Yes, I realize that she worked her way through college, but that is a far cry from knowing anything about what it’s like to be blue-collar.

Will we have to change the name of every building in America? No. Talk about a dumb question. Just change the names that stand as symbols. Isn’t it obvious?

If you’re going to name a building for the sake of dedicating it to diversity, choose a champion for diversity — not a champion for selective opportunity. After white women were given the right to vote, did she still speak for the votes (or rights) of the black? No. That had to happen by someone else’s hand. Took until 1964. But I digress. Everything Catt did was for the betterment of the world and women everywhere. As long as you don’t look too close.

Chadd McCaw

Junior

Mechanical engineering

September 29th Movement member