The poet behind the controversy

College junior Carlos Gomez may have publicly called University President Judith Rodin a Nazi, but he says he isn't angry. His accusation, which was incorporated into a poem he performed at a commemorative breakfast on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, has elicited much response from the Penn community. "Rodin said to me as she stood up before she left, 'If you're that angry, why don't you come and make an appointment with me sometime'.... It was an interesting dynamic that was created in this whole idea that that type of passion is conceived of as anger," Gomez says. "That wasn't anger," he continues. "It wasn't an outburst. It was very deliberate. I planned it in advance, I knew what I was doing and it wasn't shocking to me as I was reading it." In Gomez's mind, what he did "in many ways mimicked the type of thing Dr. King would have done." In his time, King was "rowdy... very radical and very militant," Gomez adds. While many people may hesitate to draw parallels between him and King, radicalism certainly isn't foreign to Gomez. He has twice toured nationally, even performing at prisons and juvenile detention centers. He has performed with poets who appear on Broadway. He has encountered audiences of as many as 7,000 people. He has been threatened with arrest for performing on a street corner in New York City. He has also self-published a book. "I'm passionate about a lot of issues, whether it's homophobia, heterosexism, racism, classism or any of these things," Gomez explains. "I don't need a reason -- these things are reasons in themselves, because they are oppressive and because there are people being marginalized and destroyed by them." To counter these issues about which he feels so passionately, Gomez does more than simply perform. "Every cent we got" from one of the tours went to the international organization Doctors Without Borders, Gomez recounts. He also tries to involve others and invoke passion. He worked as the emcee for the rally the day Vice President Dick Cheney visited campus last fall. "I sort of got ideas out there and kept up the emotion and the excitement," he remembers. "I'm a contentious individual, and I'm one person that believes that one person can make a difference," he says of his life philosophy. "I don't want to change people, I don't want to make people how I am, but what I want people to do is to care, and if I can do that, then I did something with my life." And he makes no effort to "justify... or apologize" for his performance on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. "I think we need to start pushing each other outside of our comfort zones because the only way we're going to start realizing the dream that Dr. King was talking about is when we have courage... and say, 'Listen, I want to talk about this.'" Yet even his friends think Monday's performance may have been somewhat inappropriate. "The message he got out Monday is definitely important," College senior Robeson Frazier says, "but it was not the best time or venue." However, Frazier recognizes the passion Gomez feels. "He's not just showing off -- I know that he's involved personally and emotionally," Frazier says. "Every time I've seen Carlos perform, he ups the ante." Black Student League President and Wharton sophomore Yewande Fapohunda also agrees that Gomez had "valid points that should be addressed." "Not everyone of us can be that bold -- but at the same time, boldness can get in the way," Fapohunda says. "Some people can't overlook the sensationalism." But one of Gomez's major sentiments, which appeared as a line within the poem he performed Monday, is, "I don't care whether you like what I'm saying or not." Gomez criticizes the University as a whole and Rodin as an individual, saying that the "failure to outwardly oppose government policies indicates submission and endorsement. "We need to be critical of those who claim to lead us." Thus Gomez began his performance Monday with a quote by King from when he came forward as a dissenter of the Vietnam War: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." "There comes a time.../When silence exists as compliance breeding violence/In places we've never been/Like Saipan in the Pacific or Bassara in Iraq or 43rd Street in Philadelphia," he continued in his poem. And on a day many saw as one celebrating diversity and commonality, not only did Gomez call Rodin a Nazi, but he also called many people hypocritical for their views on diversity. "Listing a seven-month pregnant African-American woman/ With a temp job at 1920 Commons, with no benefits, working overtime/But not getting paid it/Included as part of the 'black' population of 'faculty and staff'/So she can be another token gesture for your diversity," he said. "Martin Luther King was absent of hypocrisy," Fapohunda says. "And Carlos wanted for people to turn a mirror on themselves, their leaders and Rodin even, and look for hypocrisy."

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