Who Gets to Govern?

Who Gets to Govern? When Government Power Meets BIPOC Self-Determination

Apparently, Self-Determination Needs Permission

What happens when BIPOC communities build organizations, institutions, nonprofits, schools, cultural programs, and local initiatives and then discover that someone in government wants a hand on the steering wheel?

Welcome to the awkward intersection of public oversight and community self-determination. The official language may include accountability, efficiency, compliance, or public interest. Those can be legitimate goals. But when rules, funding conditions, investigations, or administrative barriers disproportionately burden BIPOC-governed entities, a reasonable question follows: Is the government ensuring accountability, or narrowing the space these communities have to govern themselves?

Apparently, communities can be encouraged to lead provided they lead in a way that never makes the people holding the purse strings uncomfortable. How generous.

Power is not only about who holds office. It is also about who controls resources, who writes the rules, who gets heard, and who has the practical ability to make decisions for their own communities.

Oversight or Overreach? 

Government oversight can serve real purposes.

But oversight can become a problem when requirements are vague, selectively enforced, excessively burdensome, or designed without meaningful input from the communities expected to comply.

Imagine a small BIPOC-led nonprofit spending more time documenting its work for multiple agencies than actually doing the work. The community needs food access, youth programming, legal referrals, or cultural support. The organization needs three new spreadsheets, two audits, a compliance portal that only works on Tuesdays, and a password reset that has apparently become a federal research project.

That is not proof of discriminatory intent on its own. It is, however, a reason to examine whether the burden is necessary, proportionate, consistently applied, and accessible to smaller organizations.

The Power Behind the Paperwork

From a socialist perspective, control over funding is a form of power. If an entity depends on government grants, contracts, permits, or public facilities, the government can influence its choices through the conditions attached to those resources.

Conditions can be reasonable and lawful. The concern arises when funding or approval is used to pressure an organization to change its mission, silence criticism, abandon community priorities, or accept decisions made without its meaningful participation.

That raises a practical set of questions: Who wrote the rules? Who benefits from them? Who can afford the lawyers, consultants, and compliance staff? And who gets pushed out because meeting the requirements costs more than the grant is worth?

Because nothing says ‘community empowerment’ quite like handing a grassroots organization a grant and then burying it under paperwork until the grant has evaporated into administrative dust.

Representation Is Not the Same as Self-Determination

A BIPOC person in a government office can be a significant representation. But representation alone does not guarantee that BIPOC-led organizations or communities have real decision-making power.

A community may see familiar faces in official photographs while still having little influence over budgets, program design, enforcement decisions, or the rules governing its institutions. Diversity in the room matters; authority over the decisions matters too.

Because a photo of diverse leadership is not a substitute for shared power. The brochure can be beautiful and the decision-making process can still be closed.

The Socialist Bottom Line: Community Power Must Be Real

A socialist lens asks whether communities have meaningful power over the institutions and resources that shape their lives. That includes the ability to organize, set priorities, preserve cultural identity, and deliver services without arbitrary interference.

This does not mean every BIPOC-governed entity should be exempt from lawful oversight. It means oversight should be transparent, evidence-based, proportionate, and open to challenge and should not become a back door for controlling lawful community activity.

If a government says it wants community-led solutions, it should be prepared to share decision-making power, not just distribute instructions. Otherwise, ‘community-led’ risks meaning ‘community does the work while someone else keeps the keys.’

Self-determination is not the absence of accountability. It is the ability to participate meaningfully in decisions, to be treated fairly under the rules, and to lead without facing unjustified barriers because of who the community is or whom it serves.

At some point, we have to ask whether the system is supporting community governance or merely tolerating it as long as it stays quiet, compliant, and convenient.

Feel free to share your thoughts on Socialism as it pertains to the LGBTQIA+ community. Every 2nd Monday of the month we will post a blog about the importance of socialism and suggestions on social practices. If you have an experience or topic that you would like to discuss, please reach out to Angel@iammecorp.org

Resources:

• U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) — reports on federal oversight, grants management, and accountability: https://www.gao.gov/

• U.S. Commission on Civil Rights — reports and briefings on civil rights and government policy: https://www.usccr.gov/

• National Council of Nonprofits — resources on nonprofit advocacy, government grants, and regulatory issues: https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/

• National Congress of American Indians — policy resources on tribal sovereignty and self-determination: https://www.ncai.org/