Loretta Ross: Calling-In the Call-Out Culture
“Do you want to continue to live out the patterns of your childhood? Or do you want to make different choices? Are you programmed or are you self-determining?” So says Loretta Ross, Professor at Smith College in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender, a founder of reproductive justice theory, and an expert on feminism, racism, and human rights on this episode of Pulling the Thread. Loretta has co-written three books on reproductive justice and is the author of the forthcoming book, Calling In the Calling Out Culture. Loretta has been a leader in the human rights movement for decades—she worked with Reverend C.T. Vivian, one of Martin Luther King’s right hands, to rehabilitate former members of hate groups. As a rape and incest survivor herself, she taught Black feminism to incarcerated rapists. She has learned, throughout her career, to lift the hood on peoples’ lived experiences—the identity they project to the world—and determine, through courageous conversation, where their humanity lies, and where their values overlap. She believes with a certain fierceness that we have far more in common with each other—across the entire political spectrum—than not. In recent years, she has become a vocal opponent of cancel culture—ironically, people have attempted to cancel her for this—because, as she explains, she’s interested in being part of a movement and not a cult. She believes that political purity and the policing of other allies is...the opposite of helpful. And that in the process of building coalitions for sweeping social change and evolution, we alienate and lose people who would otherwise want the very same things as us.
In this episode, she gives us a crash course in the practice of calling in—an alternative to calling out, or publicly shaming those whose behavior or beliefs we deem unacceptable. In a culture devoid of empathy and grace, Ross implores us to offer people a chance to change, to give them the opportunity to be as good on the outside as they think they are on the inside. For Ross, recognizing that how we do the work is just as important as the work we do, gives us the incredible opportunity to bring more people in, building the power base of the social justice movement. When we choose to use calling in practices, she says, we choose them because of who we are, not because of who the other person is, and when we affirm the humanity of others, we affirm our own humanity in turn.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Identifying your circles of influence…(Approx. 8:31)
The Uncle Frank strategy…(Approx. 21:14)
Programming vs. self-determining…(Approx. 27:29)
Guidelines for the creation of a calling-in environment…(Approx. 42:15)
MORE FROM LORETTA ROSS
Loretta Ross’ Website
Preorder her book, Calling in the Calling Out Culture, by joining her mailing list
Take the online course: Calling In the Calling Out Culture in the Age of Trump
Follow Loretta on Twitter
READ HER WORK:
Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice
Reproductive Justice: an Introduction
Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundations, Theory, Practice, Critique
Reproductive Justice as Intersectional Feminist Activism
DIG DEEPER:
I’m a Black Feminist. I Think Call-Out Culture Is Toxic. - Loretta Ross, NYT Op-Ed, August 2019
Speaking Up Without Tearing Down - Loretta Ross, Spring 2019
What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In? - Jessica Bennett, NY Times, November 2020
Up From Hatred - Michael D'Antonio, LA Times, August 1997
TRANSCRIPT:
(Slightly edited for clarity.)
ELISE LOEHNEN:
We're all human, right? And we're all here doing our best in these meat jackets. And yet, particularly in this culture, we are holding ourselves or holding each other probably would be more appropriate, to some righteous standards of behavior. And so it is an honor to sit with you. I admire every facet of your long and storied career in activism. And I think that your message, which I've heard you equate to potentially it's the equivalent of nonviolence in the sixties, is so powerful and so needed. So thank you for all of your work. I just want to start there. You are a lighthouse for all of us, so maybe we can start with a little bit of your worldview about, I've heard you describe it as the percentages, or how we're all aligned along a spectrum politically, and the way that you see this adherence to either extreme as so problematic. And whether you think that we inherently, we try to balance each other out as some sort of massive human organism. And so that's why we're seeing polarity? But would you mind just giving us an overview of how you think about activism and the context of moving people?
LORETTA ROSS:
So, if you're the only Black person in a room full of white people, and you're asked to speak on behalf of all Black people, that's identity determinism. If you're a white person in an interracial group, and you think you shouldn't say something because you're white, that's identity determinism. So really either that you’re compelled to say something, or foreclosed from saying something, it's all part of that spectrum of identity determinism that we really need to question. Because people should be judging the content of what they want to contribute, not the identity of the person contributing it. In the same way you consider some corporate boardrooms: When a woman says something, they just overlook it, and when a man says the very same thing, then it's given weight and substance. That's identity determinism.
ELISE:
So how do we counteract that?
LORETTA:
Well, first by understanding that identity is our fundamental shaper of who we are. There's no problem having an identity. You should be proud of your identity and work on improving it every day. But at the same time, just like lived experiences, it's not the totality of what you need to know in a given situation. It's not just what you've been through that matters, but what other people have been through, what the evidence says, what the facts on the ground say, that all have to be integrated so that you can actually have a cogent analysis of what's going on. And so we counter it by trusting in our lived experiences, but not expecting our lived experiences to provide the entire truth of what is going on. But I don't want to discount the lived experiences, but at the same time, too many times, we think, well, “I've been through this, and so I have the correct way of seeing how the world works” kind of thing. And I'm like, yeah, but other people have been through what they've been through and are as complicated as you are. So you think possibly that they have something to add to this shared pool of knowledge that we all need?
ELISE:
I've heard you describe the social justice movement as a circular firing squad, or this idea, too, that some people would like a cult-like adherence to everyone having the same perspective, and same list of priorities, and same point of view on every issue—and that you're interested in building movements. And when we establish a standard and then expect everyone to abide and police that standard really in the wider world, that we lose the opportunity to talk to everyone who might have a substantial Venn diagram of values, but might not feel the same about every single issue. But I think you, you talk about it as, you know, losing the opportunity to even be in their ear or talk to them, or engage with them as a human. When we dismiss everyone who isn't in lockstep.
LORETTA:
I call it my circles of influence. I am, of course, a radical progressive, so that I inhabit and prefer to inhabit what I call my 90% bubble. And 90 percent isn't based on our percentage in the population. But it's based on the high level of unity that I have with people who share a worldview with me and parts of that worldview or opposition to injustice, and racism, and sexism, and challenging neoliberal, capitalism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, you know, we've got all our nice little buzzwords for it. That's what makes us 90-percenters. It's because we have this common language that we use that is intelligible to us, but can be off putting to a whole lot of other people when you use words like hetero-patriarchy. Our problem as 90-percenters is that we spend entirely too much time trying to turn each other into 100-percenters under the mistaken belief that if my political views don't perfectly align with yours, one of us must be wrong.
It's not enough that we agree on 90% of our worldview. I want 100%. And that's where those cult-like tactics come in, because we believe that you got to use this word to describe this situation. You've got to include this person if you want to be this. That kind of policing of words, policing of behaviors, policing of identities takes place. And so we spend a lot of time punching sideways, trying to convince people to turn themselves into 100-percenters. But I've often said that when many different people think many different thoughts and they move in the same direction, that's a movement. But when many different people think one thought, and they move in the same direction, that’s a cult. And we're building a human rights movement, not a human right cult. Now outside of the 90-percenters, are what I call my 75-percenters.
These are the people who largely share my worldview, and they work on the things that I care about. Like the Girl Scouts, working on girls’ and women's empowerment. But at the same time, they're not going to use this highfalutin feminist language to describe what they're talking about. Like hetero-patriarchy for example. And, as a matter of fact, they're turned off by those kinds of words, because it feels like to them that we're talking down to them when we start weaponizing our knowledge and language against them. But of course, as a feminist, the Girls Scouts are my allies and I'm their ally.
And outside of the 75-percenters are the 50-percenters. People like my parents. My father was an immigrant from Jamaica who joined the military when he was under-age, as a matter of fact. Stayed in the military for 26 years. Hyper-patriotic. Worked two and three jobs to keep our family of 10 afloat, always had disparaging things to say about people that didn't work two or three jobs like he did. They weren't working hard enough or whatever. Uh, he was not understanding quite that you weren't supposed to have to work two or three jobs to keep your family afloat. Dad left home at seven o'clock in the morning and never came home until we were in bed. So we really had no real relationship with dad beause he was always working. Mom, was a housekeeper, which I mean a homemaker. She had actually been a domestic worker, but she was a homemaker with eight kids. And a Southern Evangelical Christian. And so she believed in faith, she believed in family, she believed in community service. But she also believed that birth control for her daughters, meant holding a Bible between our knees so that it wouldn't fall out, holding us to the dangers of sex!
And so talking to 50-percenters like my parents is very important because they can move either to the right or the left. That's why they're 50%: They're just as likely to be influenced by my father's buddies in the National Rifle Association and adopt their worldview. Or my mother influenced by the faith healers and the Christian proselytizers that were in her life, as she was by the values that I espouse. So one time my mother was trying to explain what kind of work I do. She just couldn't explain it. She said, well, I have one son who is an architect. And I have another son who is a pharmacist. And Loretta, well, Loretta just doesn't go to jail often. She had this perception in her head that if you do human rights work, like, you know, Martin Luther King, you must either go to jail or get shot. I mean, that's all she could imagine what my life was like. And so after she hung up her call, I tried to describe what I do to my mom.
I said “Mom, do you remember when you started the Girl Scout troop for us because we weren't allowed into the white Girl Scout troops?” And she said, “Yes.” And I said, “You remember how we had to cook food and feed homeless people as part of getting our merit badges"?” And she said, “Yes.” I said, “Mom, you fed the hungry. And as a human rights activist, I ask why they're hungry in the first place. I'm living out your values in a different way.” So with 50-percenters, you go underneath their words and you speak to their values, and you can show them that the things you care about I also care about, and I'm expressing or working on them in a different way. And so I believe that we can build a very effective movement by not writing off people in that 75- or that 50-percentile, meaning degrees of shared overview and values with us. If we go underneath their words, we put our egos to the side, and really listen to them, take their perspectives and suffering very seriously, as seriously as we take our own, and bring them into the circle.
Now, outside of the 50-percenters are our 25-percenters, these are the people with whom we have so little overlap and worldviews that we're going to have a lot of difficulty talking to them. It's kind of like trying to convince people who think the election was stolen from Trump versus people who say it wasn't. And that, Biden won. There's not enough common worldview of our elections to actually have that kind of influence that you wish you could have. Outside of the 25-percenters are the zero-percenters. And these are the people who are the antithesis of what I believe in because they believe in openly supporting white supremacy. They believe in overthrowing our democracy simply because they can monopolize power and control in it. They are proud to be cruel to each other. And so you're going to have no purchase in trying to influence them. And so in my analysis of what you need to do is build your power base with the 90-percenters, the 75-percenters and the 50-percenters, and particularly focusing on the 50-percenters, because every 50-percenter can be a recruit for the other side, or the dark force.
And so we could use our power base to overwhelm the 25 and the zeros so that our worldview is the one that power is attached to. But unfortunately, it is their worldview that has moved from the margins to the center. So the policies and the proposals, they used to only be in the mouths of the Klu Klux Klan, but are now Republican public policy.
ELISE:
I so appreciate your work because I'm from Montana, which is a purple state. And it's a really interesting mix of people with many, a pretty wide overlap of Venn diagrams, but certain issues. The NRA is obviously very strong there. And when I go home, I go to this ranch to ride horses and typically on a ride it'll be half and half. Half progressives like me, and half people who bought guns in the last two years out of concern for their personal safety, quote unquote. And it's really interesting to be on these four-hour trail rides, because invariably politics comes up and you really get to know people, people that you might skirt, even from association. I think we should talk about that because that's certainly part of this cancel culture is like: “Am I associated with anyone who's going to denigrate this perfect image of myself in the eyes of other people"?” But to spend time with people and really talk to them, it is that it's like your opportunity to not to change people's minds.
Because I don't…I don't know that words, or facts, or statements really do that, but to at least present a conversation where, you know, and typically where people get really, really worked up is around something like trans rights. And it's not about trans rights. They don't seem to have any issue with a person expressing whatever their gender is. It's the policing around the language that gets them really worked up into a tizzy, for example. So these people are typically pretty socially liberal, like “live and let live.” And yet they get all enwrapped in this idea of the left and progressives as a kind of a police force, ironically. Right? Because that's also one of the things that we're trying to unwind. But anyway, I think I've, I've listened to you for a while now. And it's given me a lot of durability, and I'd say an extra shot of grace, and just being able to sit and listen, and not react, and hear them out and understand where they feel threatened. So thank you for that. But I think …I don't know how many conversations like that are happening at this point in time. It feels so volatile to engage in a, in a way that's very, very disheartening. And then I think part of it, I think I would love to explore with you is the way that we perceive ourselves. And then the way that we perceive having any of these conversations is somehow sleeping with the enemy. Or, I mean, you know, you've worked with the Klan, right?
LORETTA:
Well, I worked against the Klan!
ELISE:
Right, sorry, you worked with former Klanners to rehabilitate them and reintroduce them to society. As a rape victim, you've taught Black feminism to incarcerated rapists. Like you have gone to places to 0- percenters, really 25-percenters out of a place somehow… of not out of a wound, which is also remarkable because I think so many of us react out of wounds and go into these conversations completely unhealed, and then just project our pain on other people. So it's quite a model. So how do we do that? And is being healed essential in order to engage in this work?
LORETTA:
Well, healing is a process, not an event. So it's not like you'll ever get over the trauma that has happened to you and, you know, live a life as if it never happened. Of course it did happen. What I found through many years is that you just get better at managing your trauma, but you never can quite erase it. So it's a matter of whether or not you're going to self-determine and let your trauma define who you are or do you have control of your soul? Do you have control of how you want to walk through the world? But when it comes to talking to 25- and zero-percenters, generally I use what I call my Uncle Frank strategy. Cause I have him in my family. We all do. It's not just a stranger on the street that you’re horseback riding with! It’s the Uncle Frank that blows up the Thanksgiving dinner table by saying something racist because the niece is saying, “We shouldn't be celebrating Thanksgiving,” and Columbus day, and you know, all this other stuff.
And my Uncle Frank strategy is to first remind the person who says these hateful, racist things or whatever out of their mouth, of who they are. And so with my Uncle Frank, I used a tactic of saying, “Uncle Frank, I know you would run into a burning building to save somebody if you could. I know you wouldn't care about what race they were, whether they were gay, whether they were an immigrant, because I know that’s who you are, Uncle Frank. You're a good man. So, Uncle Frank, help me understand how I can reconcile the good man that I know you are with the words that just came out of your mouth. Which uncle do I actually have? The good Uncle Frank? Or the Uncle Frank that says those bad things about other people?” You're not calling them in and you're not calling them out. You're “calling on” Uncle Frank to determine how he wants to walk through the world in his niece’s eyes.
So you're lessening the feeling that he's going to feel attacked or be put on the defensive, because you're asking him to self-interrogate. Is this how I want to be seen by people? Or do I want to be seen in a way that's aligned with my good opinion of myself that I have on the inside. Those are the tactics that are teachable, that are learnable, through calling in practices that we can use in every conversation. Again, you go underneath the words and you see the humanity of the person who's expressing those words. And that, I think, neither the Right, nor the Left does very well because we tend to pounce on what we believe a person is represented by what they said on any given time, or even in the past. We will unearth a tweet from a decade ago and do a “Gotcha!” with somebody on what they said then.
And even then you can say, “You know, I saw this thing that you posted 10 years ago, that caught my attention. Could you tell me what was going on with you 10 years ago that made you want to say that? And do you still believe those things now?” I mean, there are so many ways we can handle these difficult conversations without feeling that our values are attacked just by engaging in them. You can invite people to a conversation without agreeing with them. That's what human beings are supposed to do. And you also have to recognize that other people will be as complicated as you are. So you got to allow them to have their good sides and their bad sides and all of that. And, they have a set of lived experiences that led him to those opinions. So you need to go underneath and ask, “Well, what caused you to believe that? Where, where do you feel like you'd been attacked for using the wrong gender pronouns and stuff like that?” What do you wish you could say in those kinds of moments that continues the conversation. We can all learn these skills.
ELISE:
Why do you think it's so hard to lean into grace and benefit of the doubt? Like what is driving this desire to sort of lash? Is it fear? Is it fear…or are we trying to prove to the world that we're good as a defense mechanism for people coming for our heads? Because it is, you know, it seems to want to come for everyone. And there is no room, as you mentioned, for evolution, right? There's this idea that we're, we should already be perfect. That we're not all learning and evolving in our understanding of the world isn't progressing. Why do you think you have to be so strong in order to extend grace? Why is it not our first instinct?
LORETTA:
I think empathy and grace are learnable skills, too, and we're not in a culture that teaches those things. I'm not a psychologist or a psychotherapist, but I believe that some of the patterns that we act out are lodged in our childhood. So when you were a child and if you made a mistake and you were severely punished for making that mistake, and scorned, and blamed, and humiliated, then you might think it's natural to do that to others when they make mistakes. If you weren't forgiven, you weren’t told you could from mistakes. So if you had that other childhood where you were forgiven, when you made a mistake and you were taught what you could learn from mistakes, then that's going to predispose you to offer forgiveness and grace to others.
And so in my calling in online classes, I asked people a very pointed question: Do you want to continue to live out the patterns of your childhood or do you want to make different choices? Are you programmed? Or are you self-determining? And let's look at what that looks like. So I think that people aren't taught how to be accepting of their own mistakes and self-forgive. And then, because they can't do that, they can't forgive others for what they perceive are other peoples’ mistakes and they think that they should be harshly criticized, punished, those kinds of things. I also think that people believe there's a perfect way to do social justice work. And so that's why they get into this political purity contest. My friend Dayzon, I put this in my book, calls it “The Woking Dead.” They’re in competition with each other. You're not sufficiently woke! You don't use the right words, you don’t do this. The Oppression Olympics, other people call it.
And I try to gently point out to people that there are many approaches to doing social justice work and the approach you’ve chosen doesn't have to be the approach approach everyone chooses. There are many pathways to the mountain top. And their lived experiences are going to give them one pathway. Yours will give you another. It's like going to the eye doctor. You know, the doctor's going to shift all these different lenses or front of your face until the doctor selects the one that's right for you. That doesn't make all those other lenses wrong. It's just, they're not yours.
So just accept that there's many different lenses. There's many different paths. There's many different lived experiences. And yet, people sometimes and quite often believe that their lense is the only one the world needs. That there’s is the only one the world should use. And we're in a capitalist system where winning is everything. And when you attach your ego to winning, then you will win at all costs. Even if that means disparaging others, humiliating other people. And then to make it even worse, we believe that the ends justify the means. So if I'm doing great human rights work for a good cause then it doesn't matter if I violate people's human rights on the way to doing that, you know, you've got to break eggs to make an omelet kind of approach. And I try to push back gently on that perception because how we do the work is as important as the work that we do.
And so you can't do work against racism in a homophobic way. You can't do work around economic justice in a way that's anti-immigrant. You can't do work around trans rights in a way this misogynist without violating the very cause that you call yourself working toward. And people are taught to live in binaries, good, evil, right, wrong, straight, gay, citizen, non-citizen. All of those things. And so I try to help people understand that the world is far more complicated than these artificial binaries that have you convinced that you're right and everyone who doesn't agree with you must by definition, be wrong.
ELISE:
In your career with Reverend C.T. Vivian and monitoring the Klan, and the things that I'm sure that you saw and observed. And, and his quote, “When you ask people to give up hate, you need to be there for them when they do,” and how difficult that must have been. But obviously, over the course of your life, seen people change. probably just minor growth, but in an expanded view of humanity for some, and for others pretty dramatically or remarkably. And I've also heard you say that you don't change people's minds just by talking to them, that there's a moment where their cognitive dissonance catches up. Where they recognize they can no longer bridge their lived reality with their perception of themselves. So what do you think that is? What is it that causes people to change? Is it just an impulse, an indescribable impulse, or an eyeopening or a push, or how do you… is there a way to create the environment where people feel safe to do that?
LORETTA:
Well, I think it is very possible to create a calling in environment where people won't be pounced upon when they tell you their honest truth. They won't be judged for having those truths and stuff like that. That is something we can create for everyone. But to the specifics of how people leave hate groups. For example, I find the causes where they're leaving are pretty all over the map. They're very varied. I've had one person who left the Aryan Nation because his second son was born with a cleft pallet and his Aryan buddies told him that his child was a genetic defect, who needed to be culled, and needed to be put to death. And that was a wake up call for him because he'd been hanging out with Nazis for two decades and never thought that their cruelty and hatred would be visited on him and his family. He thought he was one of the chosen ones that wouldn't be affected. And so he didn't have an epiphany because he suddenly discovered the humanity of Black people, or gay people, or any of those kinds of things. He had an epiphany because the threat came home.
I also worked with an ex-Klansman who ran away from criminal activities. That his buddies were just up to too many crimes and he didn't want to get caught up in their net. And so that's, what's caused him to leave the Klan. I've worked with women who didn't want to raise their children in the hate movement, because they could see how that they were disdaining education, and not turning into productive people, as they built identities around hatred of others and not self-improvement. And so there's no formula for how people leave hate movements. It's fully individualized.
One guy told me, I just realized that I was smarter than the people I was hanging around with because I kept asking questions around things they didn't ask questions about. And so I don't know if there's a predictable way to say how people change their minds. That's why I believe that we don't have that magic power to go: “Boom! Give you the right words, and make you flip, or change, or whatever. I think the best we can do is offer people a chance to become introspective like I did with Uncle Frank. Is this way you really want to be Uncle Frank, or is there another Uncle Frank in there that you'd really like to display to the rest of the world? You can offer people a chance to change, like someone offered you a chance to change at some point. But no, there's no magic bullet, there’s no magic words you can find. But I do find that most people, I mean, there are psychopaths out here, but let's put them off to the side. Most people have a misalignment between how good they think they are and how they act in the world. And we can help people examine that and make choices about whether or not they want to solve that cognitive dissonance within themselves and be as good on the outside as they think they are on the inside.
ELISE:
And still allowing for their humanity and the fact that we're human. We might want to be on the high road. We will invariably slip up at moments, stumble, and that we can just offer a hand, offer the benefit of the doubt, and get people back up onto their higher road. And I think what you said is so beautiful, that there's no map, right? It's a highly individuated process. And then also that, that impulse, the power of the impulse needing to be internal, because you think about.. I have, you know, interviewed tons of psychotherapists, and psychiatrists, and psychologists in the span of my career. And they talk about things like getting clean, or getting sober, these moments where people really evolve and change. And it's widely understood that interventions are a feeble way to get someone to choose something different, that you can show people the options, but when they decide, it has to be an internal decision that they don't want to live like this anymore.
And that way, they also get to take ownership of their lives and the decisions that they're making. There's no power in being told how to be, or how to behave. You know, so much of this is also, I think, establishing within any authority structure, like this is what you need to do to belong. These are the ways that we behave. And when we make it so outside in, rather than, as you say, calling in that higher self within each person, the self that we see frequently, you know, you see how people can sort of vacillate the moments when they're really in integrity and, really up here. And then the moments when they're base and operating from fear, and scarcity, and anger. But I think calling on them, as you say, calling them in, just being like, “I see you. I know who you are. And I know how, how wonderful you are.” Really, it's such a wonderful invitation to that people can step into, rather than the cattle prod or the chastising, which is, which is exactly what, who we, we don't want to be.
LORETTA:
More, it doesn't work. It doesn’t work. Maybe I can make an argument for the cattle prod, but people aren't cattle, it’s that it doesn’t even work.
ELISE:
Going back, this is your New York Times quote, which I'm sure was, was intensely received. I thought it was so brilliant where you talk about how you're here to work, right? You're here to do work, particularly in the social justice movement. And you don't want to see people co-opting the work as their own personal therapy space. I don't remember the exact quote, but essentially you were like, let's not make this… because it is programming from childhood, right? It is our feelings about how we need to behave, to belong or to not get slapped. And so, what's your best advice? I mean, I, I have a therapist to work out all of these issues… is it that you don't engage until you feel like you can do it from a place not of heat and anger, but of grace?
LORETTA:
No, it's not sequenced that way. It is an integrative process, it’s trying to be…you're going to do the work for the world at the same time as you do the work on yourself. And it's through the crucible of struggle that you'll find out who you really are, how resilient you really are, how much you can embrace change for yourself even as you're demanding it of the world. So it's not like I have to be healed before I can do the work. No. Part of your healing is doing the work, but that's separate from expecting that the purpose of the human rights movement is to be your healing space. Because the purpose of the human rights movement is to end all forms of oppression, all human rights violations. Not to be the place where you work out your angst about who you are. So, that's why I say couple it with doing some therapeutic work is not an and/or, it’s an and/and. At the same time, I am deeply critical of concepts like safe spaces, and trigger warnings, and things that seem to demand that people not engage in difficult conversation, unless all these boundaries are put in place where people won't be discomfited.
And I'm like, excuse me, that is not the purpose of doing social justice work. And so, for example, I'm always amused when I get into the social justice spaces and they spend the first half hour to an hour of the meeting, setting up group guidelines. Oh, we shall not do this. We shall not do that. And it's all about people's need for safety and comfort. And, and then they immediately violate the guidelines. Why are you convinced that social justice work has to be so carefully scripted? When in fact these practices of setting up guidelines aren't going to help you when you're in the supermarket, encountering a stranger that you need to decide whether to call in or call out. They're not going to pre-agree to guidelines where you have that conversation. So why are you learning skills that only work under very scripted scenarios, when the majority of your life is not lived according to a script? You know, there's a disconnect there, between what we consider as good practices versus real life.
I tend to encourage people to instead work on guidelines about the call in culture that you're going to create. In other words, don't pounce on people's words because they didn't use the word you think they should be using. Don't judge people by what they say, but ask them why they think what they said. Why they got there in the first place? Don't fail to see their humanity while you're reacting negatively to who you think they are. Because all you're seeing is a snapshot of that person. You're not seeing the full developed humanity of that person. Don't create an atmosphere where people are afraid to tell the truth for fear of being punished. Don't make people feel there's a benefit in not speaking up for fear that the mob will come on them next. Those are the kinds of calling in culture shifts that I would rather we use as guidelines. So that “safe space” is not just a phrase, but it's actually achieved.
ELISE:
It's so true. I mean, I just, I think about that even as a progressive, I'm probably in your 90, 90-percent bubble. And yet I watch my words as closely as I can for fear of, and I am certainly not perfect nor do I proclaim to be, nor would I ever want to be. I mean, it's, that's an impossible standard and we recognize that.
LORETTA:
I kind of like my imperfect self! So I’m not dying to change it. I mean, there are things I want to do better. I want to take… do self-care better. And I want to be less mean when I'm agitated or upset or anything like that. But generally speaking, if you don't like yourself, you're not going to like a lot of other people.
ELISE:
Yeah. And it leaves you nothing to work on. I mean, I think we're not gods. And as you say, like, I don't want to be…I'm not Jesus.
LORETTA:
He’s got a job. That’s the only guy who can do that role.
ELISE:
I also, like you, I heard you talk about Bryan Stevenson, who is a hero, who I've gotten to interview a couple of times in my life, and I don't want to be anyone's executioner. You know, that is not, I'm not interested in the same way that I don't want to be radically judged. I'm not really interested in judging anyone else nor do I feel like I have the right. Again, it's the same tactics, right? I'm not going to be someone's firing squad. And yet that's effectively what's happening collectively.I think you used the example of like, if Donald Trump were drowning in your swimming pool, you would throw him a dinghy. And I think that I mean, we…it's to not is to de-humanize, which is exactly what we're so critical of other people for doing.
LORETTA:
Yeah, if I was unlucky enough to find Donald Trump in my swimming pool. Cause I would consider that a bad fortune right there, because that would be like the ultimate test of my integrity. I’m hoping I never had to face that test. Cause I swear that the evil Loretta may triumph over the Loretta who wants to be good, but yes, I'd probably throw him a life raft. And as soon as I rescued him from the pool, I'd cuss him out for what he’s done.
ELISE:
Don't let him drown to the point where you have to give him mouth-to-mouth Loretta.
LORETTA:
Yeah. That would be… well, first of all, he would die. Because I don't know how to do mouth-to-mouth, for anyone. Well, I’ve always felt sorry for Melania, but moving right along…I really think that it's really important to understand that when you choose to use calling in practices, you're choosing them because of who you are, not who the other person is. Because you're choosing to be the best you, you can be. And you're fiercely protective of your own integrity and how you walk through the world. S never see calling in as what you're doing for someone else. That's the savior impulse. We need to avoid that at all possible because it rarely helps the other person and it's only boosting our egos. But if you're doing it because that's how you want to walk through the world and display the best that you can be, then you're doing it for the right reasons, because you're affirming your humanity, through the affirmation of someone else.
ELISE:
Well, if this was your introduction to Loretta and her work, I hope you enjoyed it. I really think that there's so much to learn from her and the way that she holds herself in the world, including her long track record of meeting people where they are and allowing them space to move. And I completely relate to this idea of, you know, we all have this idea of ourselves and who we are in the world, and how we want to show up, and this perfect, poised, well-spoken thoughtful, kind, generous…all of those adjectives. And then the ways in which we so often fall short, you know, and the shame, of course, that comes from that. The feeling of “Oh, I really wish I hadn't said that like that. Or I should've said something and I didn't.” What I think that Loretta was speaking to is the urgency around not letting calling out or cancel culture deprive us out of fear from the conversations that we need to be having.
And that we need to be engaging with a growth mindset, honestly, because the world is changing rapidly, language is changing rapidly. We're all trying to keep up and to do our best. And sure, there are people with deep pathologies amongst us who would wish many of us harm. And it's not about not wanting accountability for those people, or not wanting to call those people out, or call it organizations, or call out people who are so powerful we could never, we could never reach them on the personal level, but in our day-to-day lives, particularly with people who, with whom we share more, most of our core essential values, why would we cast each other aside so easily and so readily? And can we really give each other grace? And it is so hard. It is such an ask. But as she said, also in these moments, it's not about self-righteousness or ego and blaming, or feeling like, “Oh I'm such a much better person. I'm going to express to this person in this moment, how good I am and how much better I am than they are, and how much more evolved I am.” But it is really focusing on expressing yourself. It's about you, right? And how do I want to be in this moment? And what is the best representation of me in this moment. Is it chastising, and shaming, and belittling, or is it holding a durable amount of space for conversation that might be hard. But those are the conversations that we need to be having.