Yeah Lex!

Just wanted to let everyone know that our colleague and good friend Alexis Pauline Gumbs was identified by David Horowitz as one of the radical faculty ruining america!!!

Yay! Alexis!! you know you are on the right path when Horowitz has something to say about you!

see below

well,the first chapter is pretty much all about duke, and his mention of you is under a section called "Marxists and 'Queer Black Trouble Makers': The Department of English." He then highlights specific classes, and your class "To Be a Problem," is the first one. He writes:

"The synopsis explains 'This class will explore trouble-making, radical performative critique, and the transgressive and embattled act of (visual, textual, sonic and multi-media) publishing as possible responses to systemic and individual exclusions.' According to the instructor, a graduate student who calls herself a 'queer black trouble maker,' since 'publishing is an act of stolen power for outcasted communities, this class will be a publication of what it can mean to be problematic in a society inflected by race, class, sexuality, and gender norms.. Our aim is not to solve the problems of classism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia as inflected by race, but rather is to create a space where it is possible to act, speak, write, and think otherwise, anyway.' In short, the classroom is intended to be a forum for the radical views of instructor Gumbs.

"Throughout the course, students are asked to consider American blacks as an 'outcast community,' a point underscored by questions that they are expected to consider. ('Is outcast status the mark of being 'truly' black, or is it grounds to be kicked out of the 'black community'?') The same themes emerge in the books assigned for the course, which exclusively reflect the instructor's idiosyncratic views. The White Boy Shuffle, a novel by Paul Beatty, features as its protagonist a black poet named Gunnar Kaufman, who casts himself as the prophet of 'a divided, downtrodden, and alienated people' and voices sentiments such as this: 'In the quest for equality black folks have tried everything. We've begged, revolted, entertained, intermarried, and are still treated like shit.'

"Other assigned texts take an even more strident line on races. Thus, Sister Outsider, a book of essays and speeches by the lesbian activist Autre Lorde, describes American society as a 'racist patriarchy' that intentionally seeks the 'destruction' of its black citizens. The introduction to Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology claims that the 'black feminist agenda' has failed to gain a popular following because of the 'virulent racism' of American society. Essays featured in the book decry the 'racism of white women in the women's movement,' the 'prevailing popular culture of racism,' and the 'racism that is perpetuated by the white male dominant society.' No other views need apply."

The book is littered with these kinds of flatfooted readings, but it will also most likely be read by many on the neocon right who need to have their suspicions about the academic world--and of people of color in it--confirmed in the typical racist/sexist/homophobic/etc way.