Gatekeeping Goes to the Bathroom

Someone shared a story with me recently that involved two men involved in an incident that happened in a bathroom. Now that part was weird enough, but it was the outcome of the situation that made the story perfect for the blog.

The story begins with one of the men, who was a young black substitute teacher using a urinal in the schools bathroom. In comes the other man, a slightly older faculty member at that same location. As I heard the story I cringed more and more. The male faculty member came into the bathroom, and stood directly behind the substitute teacher and started to question him. What is your name, and continued with that line of identifying questions. The substitute teachers reply was the same to each question. Why are you standing behind me while I use the bathroom.

Here is why I am writing this short blog. The matter escalated to a conference type meeting. There were several faculty members in the meeting to include the two men involved in the incident, and a presiding faculty member who was a black woman.

I do not have any details on who called the meeting and why it was called. I can tell you where this story continues. The presiding faculty member asked the substitute teacher only a couple of questions as far as I can tell. One question was; Did you Identify yourself when asked who you were? The substitute replied; No. The other question asked by the school authoritarian was; Why did you not identify yourself? The substitute replied; I asked him why he was standing directly behind me while I relieved myself at the urinal. The presiding member then asked the presumptive; So you did not identify yourself when asked? The substitute stated quickly; Does anyone hear that he was standing directly behind me in the bathroom invading my privacy, and in my personal space? No one answered that question at all.

At the end of the back and forth, the presiding faculty member stated: Based on these findings I'm going to have to ask that you leave the premises immediately, and do you need anything from your class room. The substitute replied; I'm good, I have my things with me.

Now this writers question to you is this: If the roles were all exchanged by race, what would the outcome have been, 1. In the bathroom, 2. At the meeting? To support my first question to you I submit that the white American male has always felt, since before Jim Crow, that they are the police of people of color and that they have a right to interrogate, or validate people of color no matter where they find them. On the second point, Black Gatekeeping has normalized and named itself as a form of professionalism, This paradigm would not allow the presider even weigh in on the obvious human rights violation waged against the substitute, and became the gatekeeper for the same assumed white privileges I mentioned in Number 1. But I digress.