gatekeeping

As I watch and listen and work around our community and around our church, I've been thinking a lot about the following notes on "gatekeeping" that I took at an Undoing Racism workshop I attended last February...

What is a gatekeeper? Someone who has access to information, opportunities, knowledge, resources. He/she tends the gate and determines what gets let in and what gets let out.

Generally, how have gatekeepers worked in our under-resourced communities? They often are the ones who define what is helpful. They tell the community what it needs. They control, analyze, write grants for, and define what the community needs. They measure, interpret, evaluate, often without getting permission or involvement of the community. They define the rules, hide the rules, define the needs so often that the community might not even know what it needs anymore or believe that they can make a difference in their own neighborhoods. Gatekeepers often make all the demands on the community, and the community often has little voice or power to make any demands on gatekeepers. Without mutuality, there's abuse. Problem solving and creativity get silenced. Healthy relationships and community does not get built.

However, an empowering, liberating gatekeeper will give tools to the community as he/she works WITH the community in defining their needs and creating solutions. The organizing piece is so critical for the gatekeeper. To create collective power...that's real power.

This is becoming an increasingly important filter for me as I consider what to get involved with, who is involved, and how I should participate.