I’ve thought a lot about gatekeeping lately because I’ve experienced it myself.
As I’ve progressed in my career as an artist and founder, I’ve received support from some wonderful individuals. Artists who have mentored me and made introductions. Some have provided opportunities and even purchased my art. May did this all the while encouraging me to pursue my craft.
But I’ve also experienced the opposite end of this support as well.
I’ve entered rooms where you can practically feel the question hanging in the air before it is asked:
Who does he think he is?
Where established artists who have been at it longer criticize my art, question whether I belong, or are more concerned with me proving how I got there.
Sometimes it’s subtle and sometimes it blatant but all in all..
It’s very lame.
Look, I don’t expect everyone to love my artwork cause I don’t love everyone else’s… Art is subjective. Criticism comes with putting your work out into the world and I welcome constructive criticism.
But criticism is not gatekeeping.
There is a difference between constructive criticism that will help me improve and saying, “You haven’t suffered long enough to be here.” There is a difference between defending a standard and defending your spot and I think we need to address this, especially in the Black community.
Scarcity Will Have Us Fighting Over One Seat
For generations, Black Americans have been deliberately excluded from institutions, funding, education, housing, professions, galleries, boardrooms, and industries.
And so it’s no surprise that scarcity is ingrained in our minds.
After being told for so long that only one or two seats are available for folks who look like us, it makes sense that we’d protect our spots. However, there is one flaw in that equation. Sometimes, we enforce the very system we spent so much time trying to gain access to or worse yet, we create new ones.
It seems, once we manage to enter the building, instead of opening the door for others, we turn around and begin checking IDs.
Somebody else’s success does not take away mine.
Another Black artist getting a gallery show doesn’t take away my artistic space. Another Black CEO getting funding doesn’t lower the value of my business. Another Black leader being celebrated isn’t taking away my accomplishments. Another young person coming up faster than me isn’t negating all the hard work I’ve done.
Their success is not proof of my scarcity.
Their success is an indication of progress.
We Can’t Demand the Door to Be Opened and Then Lock It
My biggest issue is a simple one. We rightly challenge those institutions that exclude us and continue to rightly call out the corporations that don’t give us any opportunities.
We rightly criticize the funders who overlook Black organizations and we rightly criticize galleries for not showcasing Black artists.
We rightly criticize industries dominated by leadership that is unrepresentative of the communities they are supposed to serve. We should continue to do all of this!
However, we have to be prepared to take a look at ourselves, because we can’t demand that everybody else tear down their gates while erecting our own.
We can’t criticize the old boys’ network while creating our own version.
We can’t teach the next generation that representation matters and then get uncomfortable when they arrive earlier, approach things differently, reach broader audiences, or succeed along a path we never had access to.
That’s not progress.
My Success Doesn’t Have to Look Like Yours
I’ve reached the point in my career where people are beginning to notice and appreciate my art and the route I took was not the traditional one.
I wasn’t navigating the art world for decades before people starting taking notice of my work.
I brought my own decades of experience with me into art.
Experiences with leadership, entrepreneurship, community, trauma, faith, storytelling, relationships, and network-building long before I started painting my first piece.
So when my art started taking off, I could understand why somebody could see my journey and think, Wait. How did he get there? But that’s the wrong question.
The better question would be:
What can we learn from his journey?
That’s the mindset that we need to adopt when we interact with each other. The goal should not be to force everybody to go through the hard route that we had to take to succeed. The goal should be to make the route easier for the person who comes after us. If it took me ten years to figure it out, and I can teach the next person in two, then I should do itIf I know somebody who will change the person’s life, and the person is ready for the introduction, I should make it. If there is a table at which that person belongs and there is a seat left, I should make room for them.
Open the Door
I’ve reached the point in my life where I don’t want to be the only person in the room anymore. I want to see more Black artists in that room and more funded black founders. I want to see more black executives leading companies and more black philanthropists funding change-making work!
My work is making sure more young black and brown people won’t spend half their lives asking if they belong in that room.
I want to see somebody make fewer mistakes and not have to waste years repeating every mistake that I made.
I want to introduce people and pass along knowledge. I want to recommend people for opportunities and buy art from young artists.
I invest in Black businesses, mentor emerging leaders, and then celebrate when their time comes, even if it looks bigger than mine.
That’s what an abundant life looks like.
Imagine if more of us worked this way.
What if success wasn’t just in how high we could climb, but in how many people were able to climb because of us? And it doesn’t mean lowering our standards.
It means expanding opportunity.
It doesn’t mean that everybody deserves to be in every room.
It means we stop creating barriers where there shouldn’t be any.
And it definitely doesn’t mean we shouldn’t challenge each other. Iron sharpens iron.
I’ve encountered enough gatekeeping to know what kind of person I don’t want to be and so now that more doors are opening for me, I’m going to continue to reach back.
Not because everybody who’s coming after me needs a handout but sometimes they just need the door to be opened wide enough so that they could get in.
We have spent generations fighting for access.
Now that some of us have it, we have the responsibility to create more of it.
Don’t just claim your seat. Expand the table.