Tim Lane’s letter (Sept. 5) says the naming of Carrie Chapman Catt Hall was not meant to honor all women, but only his great aunt and ancestor. It’s the first time I’ve been corrected on that comment in two years, but I guess he knows more than the rest of us on both sides of the issue who attend ISU. If he’s right, that certainly was a misconception on my part and I apologize.

My other views are not misconceptions, however, they’re just a different point of view than Tim Lane’s. Because he appears to be a privileged white male, it might surprise him to know African-American males frequently express views that differ from his. We just don’t know our place anymore.

His defense of Catt as a family member is understandable. Cataloguing her considerable accomplishments — which The September 29th Movement has never denied — and completely ignoring her politically expedient reassurances to white supremacists is also understandable.

Let’s list one more thing that Lane neglected to mention. In 1917, she wrote to Crisis magazine, the journal of the NAACP, and generally supported the struggle of black Americans for equality. However, this was the same year she told white supremacists the suffragist movement would not only refrain from opposing them, but would swell their numbers. “Woman suffrage would so vastly increase the white vote … it would guarantee white supremacy if it otherwise stood in danger of overthrow.”

“The restrictions in [southern] states of property ownership represented by tax receipts, education and various other tests, would fall more heavily upon women than men, and thus admit fewer [African-American] women than men to the vote,” Catt added. “If the South really wants white supremacy, it will urge the enfranchisement of women.” Subtext: African American, American Indian and Latina women can’t pass the white supremacist restrictions, and will be murdered if they try to vote, but that’s not our problem.

Lane, I care about my ancestors as much as you care about yours. Your ancestor went around the world and had missionary-like pictures made in photo opportunities with women of color who could not vote in this white supremacist nation.

I believe you used the word “regrettable” when you came to Iowa State and tried to explain away Catt’s derogatory and mean-spirited words about, not just black people, but American Indians, European immigrants, poor white Americans and Latinas. President Jischke uses the word “unfortunate” to describe her views. You are both white males, and there is no evidence either of you could be described as progressive, since you both vehemently defend the status quo, i.e., this nation (and university) has always honored white supremacists, so why stop now? I use the word “evil” to describe her promises to white supremacists.

If Nazism is evil now, it was evil 65 years ago, during its heyday; if apartheid is evil now, it was evil 50 years ago; if white supremacy is evil now, it was evil 75 years ago, when your ancestor Catt promised its practitioners that passage of the 19th Amendment would swell their ranks.

She did, and the Ku Klux Klan grew to between two and three million members during the 1920s.

There are certainly two views of Carrie Chapman Catt, just as there are two views of a rope used to lynch people. If the rope was around my neck, I’d know not to count on Martin Jischke, you, or your politically racist, xenophobic and classist great aunt to help. I expect you to revere Catt, because white supremacy has always been lionized in this country. I’m going to honor my ancestors, too, and work with those — black, brown, red, white, yellow — who are going to pull her name off that building.

Milton McGriff

Graduate student

Creative writing

The September 29th Movement Central Committee