MADELEINE: For people who don’t already know you, could you talk a little bit about your calling in work: what it is and how it can impact communities?

LORETTA ROSS: My name is Loretta Ross, and approximately ten years ago, I started studying the phenomenon called calling out, and I started teaching people about how to transform that into calling people in instead of calling them out. I run online classes to teach people techniques about calling in, and my book on calling in is out now. It’s called Calling In: How to Start Making Change With Those You’d Rather Cancel because I’m a fierce believer that society improves when we invite people into conversations instead of inviting them into fights. When you call people out or demand that they get canceled, you’re basically inviting them into a fight, not a conversation. 

 

MADELEINE: Yeah, I definitely agree. It feels like calling in is an essential practice to break down barriers between people who could be stronger together. What do you think people can gain from calling in rather than canceling someone? 

LORETTA ROSS: Well, I think that they gain an opportunity to achieve accountability by treating people with kindness, love, and respect. If you want accountability, and you disregard people’s human rights and the fact that they have different lived experiences than you do, chances are you’re gonna not have accountability because no one runs to a firing squad where they expect to get told off or put down or humiliated. And so [calling in] gives you a better chance of achieving accountability, but it also offers you a chance to showcase your commitment to your integrity, to truthfulness, and your compassion for other people. 

 

MADELEINE: Definitely. At what point in your life did you begin to value calling in as a practice instead of calling out, and what was the process like?

LORETTA ROSS: Well, I only learned the term calling out a little under ten years ago, but I think I’ve embodied calling in practices in all my political work. In the 1970s, when I was the director of [the United States’] first rape crisis center in Washington, D.C., I received a letter from a man who was incarcerated, and in his letter, he said, “Outside, I raped women. Inside, I rape men, and I’d like not to be a rapist anymore.” And so even though I was a rape and incest survivor myself at the time, I went to where he was incarcerated and eventually started teaching Black feminist theory to men who were incarcerated. I tend to call that [moment] my first calling in moment because I had to call myself in first—I originally wanted to go there and curse him out, and I didn’t do that because I was able to invite them into the conversation instead of calling them out.

MADELEINE: Wow, that’s so incredibly powerful, and thank you for sharing this. 

 

MADELEINE: In one of your YouTube videos, “The Origin of the Phrase ‘Women of Color,’” you ask, “Why are we reducing a political designation to a biological destiny?” Can you talk a little bit about how you see the term women of color as being a solidarity definition rather than a biological one?

LORETTA ROSS: The term “women of color” was created at the National Women’s Conference in Houston, Texas, in 1977. I was not there, so this is a second-hand report that I can only convey, but a group of Black women went to the conference with what they called the Black Women’s Agenda with the intent of getting the conference to adopt it in place of what was then the Minor Plank. They were so successful in putting together this agenda that other minority women wanted to be included in the agenda, and, obviously if they wanted to be in the agenda, it could no longer only be called the Black Women’s Agenda. It was in those negotiations that they created the term “women of color,” and it was meant to be used as a statement of solidarity—people who are choosing to work with other oppressed people who are oppressed because of their identities or their marginalized status. In the succeeding years, people have seen it—rather mistakenly—as simply a biological designation, but the reality is that the term “women of color” is a political, a solidarity, designation. One could be Asian American, African American, Latina, Native American, and that’s what you are—that is your ethnic group or your biological definition that we have in the United States—but when you choose the term “women of color, you’re choosing to work in solidarity with other minoritized populations.

 

MADELEINE: As a final discussion point, what advice can you give about calling in to students who want to bring this inclusive method to their communities that might not be in your forthcoming book?

LORETTA ROSS: I invite people to check out my website, and you can always find ways to register for my online classes that are only $5.00 [per class], and, this way, you can get the training that I offer on calling in, and you can contribute to our calling in conversations that take place in between the classes. There are a couple ways to get involved, but, basically, even if you don’t take one of my classes, I just tell people one basic thing: “You can say what you mean, and you can mean what you say, but you don’t have to say it mean.” That’s a choice. Choose kindness, choose honesty, but choose your integrity every time you want to deal with accountability.

 

Aforementioned links:

1. Professor Loretta Ross’ website: https://lorettajross.com/

2. “The Origin of the Phrase, ‘Women of Color’”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82vl34mi4Iw