R3 Contributor: Gee Joyner

Having obtained both a Bachelors and Masters degree in English Literature from the University of Memphis, as well as an African American Literature Certification, Gee Joyner has utilized his rhetorical prowess as an empowering tool of social commentary to record the dichotomy and disturbing behaviors indicative of God’s wonderful and complex creation; humanity. After surviving an attempted murder in 2002 and using his skills in composition to aid and assist troubled juveniles in their quest to overcome the sociopolitical, economical, and violent pitfalls indicative of U.S. culture, Joyner now embarks on a sojourner to infiltrate the literary world by documenting his take on America and the attributes thereof that define what it truly is to be American. His Masters thesis, White Man’s Fame, Black Man’s Shame: The American Textual Canon’s Negative Depiction of African American’s in Mass Media, resides in the Ned McWherter Library at the University of Memphis and is a document of depth that further explains his literary, social, and cultural convictions. He is the author of Kim; The Story of John and several published Literary Criticisms. Joyner is currently a professor of English in the Fine Arts and Humanities Department at the historical LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis.

Gee’s Contributions:

1. Apples and the Girl from East Orange: How Bites from the Forbidden Fruit led to the Demise of Whitney Houston

2. American Ministers: Preachers or Pimps

3. Don’t Ask and Don’t Tell God: The Quandary of Homosexuality in America
4. The Passion of the (Negroes’s) Christ: Why America will Never Elect Another Black President
5. F**ck the Police, the Scribes and Pharisees: Rodney King, Jesus, and Hip Hop’s Prophetic Tradition
6. The Lamb That Was Slain: The Killing of Trayvon Martin

7. Them Niggas Got Shot: The Disturbing Idolatry of King and Obama

8. Don’t Ask, We’ll Tell It: Jason Collins and the Political Theology of Coming Out