Everyone seems to think that in the ’90s, racism or tension among different races no longer exists, but recent events at ISU have proved otherwise.

From the controversy of Catt Hall to the stadium being named after Jack Trice to the recent GSB episode, they all illustrate that race tension is a growing problem on campus and is not going to go away by people thinking that everything is “lah dee dah.”

The main problem on this campus is ignorance.

I’ve come across many people who know nothing about the Catt Hall issue, the September 29th Movement or Jane Cox and have commented, “I don’t see what the big deal is.”

I have to admit last year when the controversy erupted and people asked me how I felt about the issue, I gave an honest answer, “I don’t know enough about it to come to a decision.”

I wasn’t about to comment or make a judgment about something that I didn’t know about.

Many people say that Carrie Chapman Catt was a product of her time, it was expected and accepted of whites to act that way then.

No one ever questions whether it was right or wrong, because everyone knows the answer to that question is that it was wrong.

And not everyone during that time was racist; there were such people known as abolitionists.

Basically what most people are saying is that if everyone is jumping off a bridge they should do it too, because everyone else is doing it.

Jane Cox had stated in a recent article in the Daily that the September 29th Movement took one negative statement out of a context of numerous positive statements.

But I ask Jane Cox and other people this: If you have a bucket of apples and all the apples are good besides one, are you going to eat the rotten apple too? I don’t think so.

Other people say that Catt changed her racist ways, and that we shouldn’t condemn her, because can’t people change?

Catt Hall is supposed to recognize Catt for her accomplishments she made to get women the right to vote.

The building’s not supposed to recognize Catt after that time, so if she changed her ways after the 19th Amendment, good for her.

But we’re supposed to be recognizing her help in getting the 19th Amendment, and during that time she used racist remarks to exploit blacks for her own benefit.

Many people say to me, “You should be praising Catt for helping you get the right to vote.”

I say Catt wasn’t trying to help me as a black woman, so why should she receive my praise?

I understand there are political and monetary issues behind the naming of Catt Hall, but people need to make the decision:

Is money more important than people’s feelings?

People have said that students and faculty who didn’t donate money for the renovation of Catt Hall should not have the right to complain.

But don’t we give this university thousands of dollars every year for tuition? Uuuummmmm.

I wonder, if David Duke gave this university $50 million only under the agreement that the university build a building in his honor, would they do it?

Also, the recent GSB controversy was completely unprofessional.

The unprofessional aspect is that no governmental committee should go back on its word after a proposal is legally passed by its members.

It’s their own fault for feeling they should have discussed the issue more.

Nobody forced them to pass the proposal so quickly.

If they wanted to start this bill for taking a percentage of profits from organizations, they should propose to do it for the next time on.

I’m going to end my commentary with a simple and overly used quote by Rodney King during the 1992 Los Angeles Riots: “Can’t we all just get along?”

Ignorance is not the key to end racial tension.

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Tara Deering is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Des Moines.