From its inception, music education in the United States has been a vehicle for indoctrination into an American variant of Western European hegemony (Bradley, 2006; Gellerstein, 2021; Gould 2012). The inherent inequities are deeply embedded within the discipline and go beyond the boundaries of music-making, ensemble choices, instructional content and repertoire which, while important, ultimately direct attention away from a responsibility for the ways practitioners contribute to the regeneration of White supremacy.Within this paper, three specific modalities are addressed in which White supremacy functions and persists as gatekeeping mechanisms that funnel music educators from the profession. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) was employed and framed through critical race theory (CRT) and critical pedagogy perspectives to investigate the ways language mediates the meaning for teachers and contributes to the persistence of White supremacy and gatekeeping within music education. The methodological architecture—dialectical-relational elucidatory approach (DREA)—was designed upon an adaptation of Fairclough’s (2009) dialectical-relational approach to appropriately treat the relationship between discourse and individuals as complex and dialogistic.The findings revealed that White supremacy and gatekeeping were recognizable to music educators throughout discourse and within professional structures and interactions. Both were observed through modes of assimilation, appropriation, and erasure that manifested along four temporal zones of gatekeeping: PreK-12 Schooling, College/Teacher Preparation, Certification, and Career. This intersection between White supremacy and gatekeeping is representative of the complex and veiled ways assimilation, appropriation, and erasure function within discourse to preserve, bolster, and regenerate hegemonic systems and legacies. Implications from this study can inform strategies for educators to recognize, understand, and act against White supremacy within all subdisciplines of public-school education, as well as social and professional networks outside of teaching and learning.