WANTcast: The Women Against Negative Talk Podcast
188: CALLING IN + Making Change With People You'd Rather Cancel with Loretta J Ross
How do you start to make change happen with people when you'd rather call them out or cancel them altogether? Are calling out or cancelling ever effective? And...is there a different way to actually make change happen (that minimizes the chances of burning out or losing your mind in the process)?
Today on the WANTcast we are talking to LEGENDARY human rights activist Loretta J. Ross, author of the new book CALLING IN: How To Start Making Change With Those You'd Rather Cancel. In this groundbreaking conversation, we'll talk about:
- The 5-C continuum of Calling In, Calling Out, Calling On, Cancelling, and Calling it Off
- How to do better "threat assesments"
- Loretta's pivotal moment and first "calling in" experience with people who seemed the most unlikely to want to change
- How to turn potential conflict into conversation
and more!! **CW: this conversation contains mention of rape **Want to read along? Check the "transcript" option in your podcast player!
BIO:
Loretta J. Ross is an activist, professor, and public intellectual. In her five decades in the human rights movement, she’s deprogramed white supremacists, taught convicted rapists the principles of feminism, and organized the second-largest march on Washington (surpassed only by the 2017 Women’s March). A cofounder of the National Center for Human Rights Education and the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, her many accolades and honors include a 2022 MacArthur Fellowship and a 2024 induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Today, Ross is an associate professor at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and a partner with 14th Strategies Consultants, with which she runs “Calling In” training sessions at organizations around the country.
Loretta has co-written three books on reproductive justice: Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice in 2004; Reproductive Justice: An Introduction in March 2017; and Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundations, Theory, Practice, Critique in October 2017. Her newest book, Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You'd Rather Cancel is available TODAY, wherever books are sold.
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SHOW NOTES:
Calling In courses + education
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Buy your copy of WANT YOUR SELF here
(Reading WYS for the new year in your book club? Email me at katie@womenagainstnegativetalk.com and let me know!
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