(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Not All Gatekeepers? [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-07-22

We have a problem when people want to silence or discourage others from speaking up from experiences of historical and societal gerrymandering. In any society that is falsely striated by rank, there will be some people who view their relatively higher privilege or status as proof of superiority. They will view their relatively higher status in the striated society as proof of their own merit as compared to those who can’t get past the know-your-place gatekeepers.

The fix is in when it comes to gatekeeping. Historically in this country, the rules for belonging couldn’t be met by certain people because of their gender, race, poverty, educational level, etc. The categories of exclusion vary from gate-kept society to gate-kept society. Most of us have run into those gates hard and fast at one point or many. We’ve been bruised and bloodied – figuratively or literally – trying to pass the gates.

A very short and very incomplete list of people braving the gates here in the United States: Native Americans fighting for the right to exist on and off reservations constructed on stolen land / The first Black students to pass the gates of segregated schools in the US / The first female to run a marathon / The first female, Black person, Native American in collegiate medical school / Black people breaching US apartheid by sitting at lunch counters in Whites Only diners / Suffrage seekers / The first trans person to serve in Congress / Zohran Mamdani running as the first Muslim and Democratic Socialist of NYC.

There have been hundreds of thousands - millions - in our history who’ve dared to ‘pass through’ not out of a wish to affront but because of their hard-won knowledge, gained despite societal brainwashing, that they are equal to anyone already within the gates. From within those gates, gatekeepers often give superficial or unattainable reasons for keeping certain others out of the organization.

Know-your-place gatekeepers deliberately create a hostile atmosphere to drive off those they feel don’t belong. All such tactics are just underhanded ways to keep the good stuff for the people who “belong”, using bad science, laws and customs to justify supremacy. Gatekeepers motives often spring from jealousy and insecurity, the little whisper of truth inside that tells them they really aren’t superior.

Any organization can become infected with gatekeeping: banks, universities, clubs, restaurants, gyms, theater, sports, online forums, etc. It happens in informal social groups and larger, more formal groups. Gatekeeping leaves no room for the breadth of human experiences, the breadth of creative expression, the breadth of multiple cultures. Gatekeeping leaves no room for those things because the very breadth of our humanity is proof that we are equal.

When I critique gatekeeping, I’m not talking about moderating abusive content. Yes, we do need to watch out for each other and make sure no one’s being harassed or bullied. That’s important. But there is also a kind of gatekeeping that amounts to bullying. Not sharing or understanding someone else’s viewpoint is not grounds for putting up the gate. It’s grounds for asking yourself why this person’s thoughtful opinion and lived experience aggravates you so much. It’s grounds for self-reflection.

I’m not immune to thinking with a gatekeeping mentality. But I am ultimately responsible for holding onto such a mentality and have to ask myself the hard questions when it crops up.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/7/22/2334630/-Not-All-Gatekeepers?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.