I’ve noticed the term ‘gatekeeper’ pop up in a couple of places
recently and damn if that doesn’t just curl my toes in joy. I think
the world would be a much happier place if we learned to snarl
‘Gatekeeper’ with disdain in our hearts whenever someone acts
gatekeepery. The first thing to understand about gatekeeping is that
they (we) are the underpaid security gaurds to the powerful, and the
way you recognize a security guard is by the uniform.. There’s a
reason any kind of anti-oppression activist has a well-practiced eye
roll for the 10,000th time they’ve heard the same tired-ass arguement
for why oprressing person X is okay because blah blah. Uniformity,
lack of critical thought, are the main tools of the power structure.
If you have ever found yourself using the sentence structure if/then
relating to an oppressed group, then you are a gatekeeper. If girls
don’t want to be raped then they shouldn’t wear short skirts. If black
kids spent more time reading books then they would go to college. Etc.