How to Call People In (Instead of Calling Them Out) | Loretta Ross
Loretta Ross, a radical Black feminist and Visiting Associate Professor at Smith College, discusses her 'calling in' philosophy as an alternative to the toxic 'calling out' culture. She advocates for engaging with grace and forgiveness, even with those who disagree, to foster a more inclusive society and avoid alienating potential allies.
Deep Dive Analysis
16 Topic Outline
Introduction: Hope, Engaged Citizenship, and Loretta Ross's 'Calling In' Philosophy
Loretta Ross's Emotional State and Initial Thoughts on the Insurrection
Loretta Ross's Framework for Societal Engagement: The 'Bubble' Theory
Distinguishing Between 'Calling In' and 'Calling Out' Strategies
The Shifting Overton Window and Mainstreaming of Fringe Ideas
Origin and Definition of 'Calling In' as an Alternative to 'Calling Out'
Loretta Ross's Experience Working with Incarcerated Rapists
Loretta Ross's Experience Working with Former White Supremacists
Developing the 'Calling In' Reflex and Personal Accountability
Critique of Using Social Movements as Personal Therapy Spaces
Rethinking Whiteness Studies: From White Guilt to White Courage
Detrimental Impacts of the 'Call-Out Culture' on Discourse
Strategies for 'Calling In' Family Members with Offensive Views
Addressing Pushback and Criticisms of the 'Calling In' Approach
Loretta Ross's Perspective on Seeing Humanity in Everyone
Optimistic Outlook and Sources of Hope for the Future
6 Key Concepts
Calling In
A method of holding people accountable for their actions or words with grace and respect, pausing to give them the benefit of the doubt rather than responding with anger, shame, or blame. It assumes people can change and grow, and aims to be stronger together.
Calling Out
A common social media practice of publicly shaming or blaming individuals for perceived wrongs, often leading to anger, punishment, and the dehumanization of those with whom one disagrees. It tends to focus on guilt and character assassination, and often makes people afraid to share honest thoughts.
Societal Bubbles (90%, 75%, 50%, 25%, 0%ers)
A framework for understanding different groups in society based on their alignment with progressive worldviews. The 90%ers are progressive allies, 75%ers align on worldview but not jargon, 50%ers are middle-of-the-road, 25%ers fear losing control, and 0%ers are hypocritical manipulators.
Overton Window
A concept describing the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse. The episode notes that this window has shifted significantly to the right, allowing previously fringe ideas (like those of David Duke) to become mainstream within certain political parties.
Integrity vs. Reputation
Integrity is what an individual knows about themselves and their moral compass, while reputation is what other people think they know about that individual. The speaker advises focusing all one's time on protecting integrity because 'you're the person you have to sleep with every night'.
White Fragility vs. White Courage
A critique of whiteness studies, suggesting that while it provides a necessary analysis of how whiteness was constructed, it often leads to white guilt and paralysis (fragility) rather than inspiring white people to act courageously against white supremacy by highlighting historical examples of white abolitionists and allies.
6 Questions Answered
'Calling in' is a call-out done with love and respect, holding people accountable with grace and forgiveness, giving them the benefit of the doubt. 'Calling out' typically involves responding with anger, shame, and blame, often dehumanizing the person.
It involves examining one's childhood experiences with accountability and punishment, reflecting on how those patterns are applied to others, and assessing whether carrying grudges or blowing up relationships truly leads to peace and happiness.
It makes people afraid to share honest thoughts, leading to a loss of diverse perspectives and genuine engagement. It can also be used for self-aggrandizement, attaching lethal labels to people, and presuming guilt rather than innocence, thus poisoning relationships.
While acknowledging the necessity of white people examining their whiteness, she critiques its tendency to lead to white guilt and paralysis (fragility) rather than inspiring white courage and action against white supremacy, thereby using movements as therapy spaces.
Instead of public shaming, one can express personal hurt, ask if they intend to cause pain, and request that they choose to use words that will not hurt you, at least in your presence, assuming there's a desire to preserve the relationship.
Drawing on the 400-year lineage of Black people who have never given up hope, she believes in the fundamental goodness and astonishing grace found even in unlikely people. She sees a collective human resilience that will help the country get through its current challenges and build a better world.
29 Actionable Insights
1. Hold Accountable with Grace
Hold people accountable for their actions with grace and forgiveness, rather than anger and punishment. This approach avoids using punitive techniques that contradict your values and acknowledges your own fallibility.
2. Give Benefit of Doubt
Before reacting to perceived wrongdoing, pause and give the person the benefit of the doubt, considering misinterpretation, misstatement, or past regret. This allows you to ‘peer into their heart instead of just react to their words’ and fosters grace.
3. Prompt Reflection, Not Accusation
Use a simple phrase like ‘I beg your pardon?’ and a pause to prompt someone to reflect on their words without directly accusing them. This indicates that something didn’t land well and allows them to self-correct without a full ‘call out’.
4. Address Offensive Remarks Personally
When confronting offensive remarks from family or friends, use a ‘calling in’ approach by expressing personal hurt and appealing to the relationship. This addresses the issue without blowing up the relationship or dinner, assuming you care enough to treat them with respect.
5. Differentiate Engagement Strategy
Differentiate your engagement strategy based on the group’s alignment and intent. ‘Call in’ those open to dialogue (50%, 75%, 90% circles), and use a ‘call out’ strategy for those actively harmful or manipulative (25%, 0% circles) who are cynics or manipulators.
6. Adjust Communication Register
Adjust your communication style based on the audience’s familiarity with jargon. Use values-driven language and avoid insider terminology when speaking to ‘middle of the roaders’ (50%ers) to connect and influence them effectively.
7. Engage Middle-Roaders Actively
Actively engage with and influence ‘middle of the roaders’ (like parents) using their value system (e.g., religious background) to prevent them from being swayed by extremist views. This protects potential allies from being pulled towards harmful ideologies.
8. Examine Childhood Accountability Patterns
Reflect on your childhood experiences with accountability and how your fight, flight, or freeze instincts were formed. Recognizing these patterns helps understand the roots of your reactions and enables conscious choices to change them.
9. Protect Peace & Sanity
Make conscious choices to protect your own peace, happiness, and sanity by understanding your patterns and choosing different responses. This helps avoid self-inflicted unhappiness and fosters personal well-being.
10. Evaluate Grudges’ Cost
Self-reflect on the effectiveness and personal cost of holding grudges, blowing up relationships, or living in fear of being called out. This evaluation helps determine if current patterns serve your well-being and motivates different choices.
11. Prioritize Integrity Over Reputation
Prioritize protecting your personal integrity over your reputation. Your integrity is what you know about yourself, while reputation is what others think they know, and ultimately, you live with your own choices.
12. Believe Demonstrated Behavior
Trust people’s demonstrated behavior and actions, especially when they reveal harmful intentions. This helps you avoid being manipulated and recognize when a ‘call-out’ strategy is necessary.
13. Acknowledge Internal Change
Recognize that genuine change in deeply entrenched beliefs (like hate movements) must come from within the individual, as external persuasion alone is insufficient. This helps manage expectations and understand the limits of external influence.
14. Forgive Past Mistakes
Avoid punishing people for past mistakes, especially from their youth, assuming they have grown and learned from them. This acknowledges personal growth and gives grace, rather than weaponizing old information.
15. Investigate Current Character
When past wrongs surface, investigate the person’s current character and growth before weaponizing that information against them. This gives grace and expects growth, rather than immediately condemning them for teenage errors.
16. Separate Ideas from Identity
Separate ideologies (like white supremacy) from immutable characteristics (like skin color) to engage in more effective anti-oppression work. This avoids dogmatic binary thinking and focuses on dismantling harmful ideas rather than blaming entire groups of people.
17. Focus on White Courage
Focus on stories of ‘white courage’ and white abolitionists/allies in history, rather than dwelling in ‘white guilt and fragility.’ This inspires positive action and helps overcome injustice by learning from examples of white people who fought against oppression.
18. Build Trust Through Work
Prioritize doing the work (e.g., social justice) to build relationships and trust, rather than waiting to build bonds of relationship and self-disclosure before starting. You will discover people’s true character and your own through shared action and responsibility.
19. Ground Actions in Integrity
Ground your actions in your personal integrity, using it as a compass for who you choose to work with and care about. This ensures consistency between your values and your behavior, fostering broad collaboration.
20. Foster Positive Contributions
Focus on nurturing the positive aspects in others and encourage their growth, rather than acting as their judge. This fosters a collaborative environment where everyone can contribute positively, reducing internal conflict.
21. Cultivate Speaking Up
Identify situations where you wish you could speak up, understand the barriers, and recall past instances of bravery. This process helps build confidence and develop the courage to address issues and speak your truth.
22. See Humanity in All
Actively strive to see the humanity in all people, even those caught up in harmful systems or ideologies. This avoids dehumanization and maintains a capacity for grace and understanding, even while criticizing systems.
23. Extend Basic Compassion
Extend basic human compassion (e.g., throwing a life raft) even to those you strongly disagree with or dislike. Focus on your own moral integrity rather than their perceived deservingness, as your actions define you.
24. Embrace Realistic Perspective
Embrace a realistic perspective, seeing things as they are rather than as you wish they were. This enables effective action and helps build desired outcomes by grounding efforts in reality.
25. Approach Change Experimentally
Approach attempts to change hearts and minds with a scientific, experimental mindset, accepting that many attempts may not work. This fosters patience, persistence, and helps avoid frustration, viewing the process as an ongoing experiment.
26. Cultivate Hope
Cultivate and promote hope, especially when facing adversity, drawing strength from historical resilience. Hope is essential for survival and for continuing to work towards a better world, as demonstrated by the speaker’s ancestors.
27. Celebrate Life Amidst Loss
In times of loss, choose to celebrate the life and positive experiences shared with the deceased, rather than solely mourning their passing. This helps find resilience and joy amidst grief, focusing on gratitude for the time had.
28. Believe in Collective Resilience
Maintain hope and belief in collective human resilience, even when facing widespread challenges and tragedies. This fosters collective strength and belief in the ability to overcome adversity in astonishing ways.
29. Reserve Judgment
Reserve judgment of individuals based on their social location or privileges until you understand their personal history and how they’ve responded to it. This allows you to appreciate unexpected kindness and avoid prejudging people.
9 Key Quotes
We're all on the same team, but we spend our best anger on each other for not being cult members.
Loretta Ross
A calling in is simply a call-out done with love and respect.
Loretta Ross
If I can call in a Nazi, if I can call in a rapist, why can't I call in somebody who gets the gender pronoun right, wrong, or says something that is racist that they may not know is racist?
Loretta Ross
Your reputation is what other people think they know about you. Your integrity is what you know about yourself.
Loretta Ross (quoting Lois McMaster-Boujoe)
It's not about whether or not Donald Trump deserves to be saved, but do I deserve to be his executioner?
Loretta Ross
I'd rather see things as they are than as I wish they were.
Loretta Ross
I find that white people generally give in to cynicism and despair too easily.
Loretta Ross
Human rights violators are created. They're not born.
Loretta Ross
When people show you who they are, believe them.
Loretta Ross (quoting Maya Angelou)
3 Protocols
Engaging with Incarcerated Rapists
Loretta Ross- Receive a letter from an incarcerated individual expressing a desire to stop being a rapist.
- Convene a group of rape survivors to discuss the request and decide on a response.
- Establish clear rules: no contraband (cigarettes, drugs, tennis shoes), no letters of pardon or support to parole board, and ensure the group is not to be used by the incarcerated individuals.
- Offer honest conversation around feminism and how to stop rape culture.
- Conduct regular, structured sessions (e.g., two-hour sessions every Friday) with the men.
- Provide educational materials (e.g., Black feminist literature, books) for discussion.
- Engage in dialogue to understand the men's past experiences and motivations for change.
- Witness their humanity and the erosion of hatred through sustained engagement.
Calling In 'Uncle Frank' at Thanksgiving
Loretta Ross- Identify an offensive comment made by a family member (e.g., Uncle Frank).
- Instead of calling them out, choose to call them in.
- Express how their words personally hurt you, even if you are not the direct target of the comment (e.g., 'every time you say that word, even though I'm not Mexican, it hurts me').
- Ask basic questions to gauge their intent, such as 'Do you want to hurt me like that?' or 'Do you love me, Uncle Frank?'
- Communicate the value of your relationship with them (e.g., 'I really love my relationship with you').
- Request that they choose to use words that will not hurt you, at least in your presence.
- Assume you care enough about the person to treat them with respect, even if you disagree with what they say.
Building the 'Calling In' Muscle
Loretta Ross- Reflect on your personal history: how you were taught as a child to be accountable for your own mistakes (punished, trained, forgiven).
- Examine how your fight, flight, or freeze instincts were formed in childhood.
- Recognize that the patterns from childhood are often applied to others when they make mistakes.
- Ask yourself if carrying grudges or blowing up relationships serves your own peace, happiness, and sanity.
- Identify situations in your current life where you wish you could speak up but are held back by fear.
- Recall past instances where you have been brave or stood up for what is right.
- Build upon your inherent 'good stuff' and address your 'bad stuff' with the understanding that you are interdependent with others on a shared planet.