Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - How to Call People In (Instead of Calling Them Out) | Loretta Ross

Episode Date: January 18, 2021

On this Martin Luther King day, it’s tempting to fear that America, and the world, may never have been further away from the kind of inclusive society that Dr. King called for so eloquently. So today, we are, I hope, going to give you a little hope -- and perhaps also some ideas for how you can be an engaged citizen without losing your mind. My guest is Loretta Ross, who describes herself as a radical Black feminist, activist, and public intellectual. She’s a Visiting Associate Professor at Smith College, and she also teaches an online course that caught our eye. It’s called, “Calling in the Calling Out Culture.” She believes that “calling out,” which is quite common on social media these days, is adding way too much toxicity to the discourse and alienating people who might otherwise be allies. Instead, she believes in “calling in,” which steadfastly insists on a large measure of grace, and rejects the impulse to dehumanize. As you will hear, she is a longtime leftist, but no matter where you stand politically, she is modeling a compelling mode of engaging that is insistently open-minded and large-hearted. And, as you will hear, it is one she has personally put the test, as a Black woman who has worked with white supremacists, and a rape survivor who has worked with incarcerated rapists.  Where to find Loretta Ross online:  Website: https://lorettajross.com Social Media: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/LorettaJRoss • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lorettaross • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm2FxbqwV3BEhDpnAihWKqQ Take a few minutes to help us out by answering a survey about your experience with this podcast! The team here is always looking for ways to improve, and we’d love to hear from all of you, but we’d particularly like to hear from those of you who listen to the podcast and do not use our companion app. Please visit www.tenpercent.com/survey to take the survey. Thank you. Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/loretta-ross-316 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to 10% Happier early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. I think we can all create a call-in culture in America. I don't despair. I don't think those people are disposable. From ABC, this is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, guys. On this Martin Luther King Day, it may be tempting to fear that America and the rest of the world may never have been further away from the kind of inclusive society that Dr. King called for so eloquently and fought for so hard. So today we are, I hope, going to give you

a little hope and perhaps also some concrete ideas for how you can be an engaged citizen without losing your mind, which is a goal we talk about a lot on the show. My guest today is Loretta Ross, who describes herself as a radical Black feminist, activist, and public intellectual. She's a visiting associate professor at Smith College, and she also teaches an online course that caught our eye recently. It's called Calling In, The Calling Out Culture. She believes that calling out, which is quite common on social media, as many of you know, is adding way too much toxicity to our discourse and alienating people

who might otherwise be allies. Instead, she believes in calling in, which steadfastly insists on a large measure of grace and rejects the impulse to dehumanize people with whom we disagree. As you will hear, Loretta is a longtime leftist, but no matter where you stand politically, I think it's worth listening here because the point is that she's modeling a compelling mode of engaging that is insistently open-minded and large-hearted. And as you will hear, this is something that she has personally put to the test as a black woman who has worked with white supremacists and a rape survivor who has worked with incarcerated rapists. A fascinating person, a fascinating discussion. I think you're going to get a lot out of it. So here we go with Loretta Ross. Loretta, great to meet you. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me on your show. Fortunately or unfortunately, this is the perfect moment to have you on. I wish it was a calmer moment in history, but given that it's not, I'm glad that I have the chance to talk to you.

Yeah, when I woke up on Wednesday morning after the election, I was euphoric because I knew that we had turned Georgia blue. of blue. And then five hours later, I was despairing because we had so much further to go to bring our country back from the brink of self-destruction. And so I'm just so royal of emotions right now because I fear for our democracy. Even though I call myself the queen of the call-in culture, there are some people I don't want to call in at all. I'm going to call them out because they enabled this insurrection. It seems to be that if they can't control it, they don't want to share a democracy. Hmm. You said before that you have the moniker of the queen of the call-in culture. Do you have any hope that there's some constructive calling in that can be done

at this time in a country where we are really at each other's throats? Well, I don't think we're all at each other's throat. If you don't mind indulging me, I'll tell you how I see the world. I think that, first of all, I live in a 90% bubble of people who are progressive. Sometimes they even call us radical, which I don't mind. I consider that a compliment. But the people that I'm most in conversation with, we understand that there's things like racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, immigration violence, and all of that stuff going in the world. We even have our own little lexicon of all the isms that we talk about.

And part of my problem is that we in the 90% bubble spend too much time trying to turn ourselves into 100 percenters. Like we're supposed to perfectly align with every thought. And so if I work on women's rights, that means that I'm doing something wrong because I'm not working on trans rights. If I'm working on trans rights, I'm doing something wrong if I'm not working on racial justice, on and on and on. That's why I call us a circular firing squad, because we're all on the same team, but we spend our best anger on each other for not being cult members. We're all supposed to be apparently 100% aligned. Outside of us are what I call the 75 percenters. These are people who don't use our insider jargon of homophobia and all of these other words, but they're aligned with us in a worldview.

So since I'm a women's rights activist, a 75 percenter for me would be somebody like the Girl Scouts, where they may not be organizing the Girl Scouts to march in a protest like I would. But at the same time, they work for women's and girls' empowerment. So they would be my ally, even if they are repelled by my jargon. So I'm going to find a way to talk to them in a register that they could hear versus the register that I would use for the 90 percenters. Outside of the 75 percenters are the middle of the rotors. They're the 50 percenters. Those are people like my parents. My father was a lifer in the military, in the army, very conservative, retired after 26 years. My mother was a Southern evangelical Christian woman. And there probably wasn't a whole lot of common language that I could use from my 90% bubble on my parents. But at the same time,

they taught me their values. And I'll just tell you a conversation that my mom and I had one day. Back in the 50s, my mother had started a Black Girl Scout Troops in San Antonio, where I was, because Black girls weren't allowed to join the White Girl Scouts Troops. And every weekend we had to cook food and feed it to the homeless people in San Antonio. And so mom could never figure out what a social justice human rights activist did. And finally, I put it to her and said, Mom, do you remember when we had to feed the homeless people when I was a Girl Scout? And she, of course, she remembers. She said, yes. I said, well, as a human rights activist, I asked why they're hungry in the first place.

And she got it. Because she said, oh, okay, I feed them, and you want to know why they're hungry. because she said, oh, okay, I feed them, and you want to know why they're hungry. And so you can use that kind of values-driven language to talk to 50 percenters if you stay away from your jargon and your assumptions that they don't have values that you can agree with. Now, outside of the 50 percenters are the 25 percenters. I think those were the majority of the people who stormed the Capitol. They are the ones who honestly fear that they are losing control of the country. They've been told by some very unscrupulous people that if they don't remain in power, the country is going to go to hell. Western civilization

will collapse. Christmas will not be celebrated and pedophiles will take your children. I mean, that's the kind of things that they say to each other. And they sincerely believe that. And then outside of them are what I call the zero percenters. They was the ones that showed up in military gear with the zip ties ready to actually do harm to people in the Capitol. They showed up with guns and bombs and things. And so when I talk about calling in, I'm only trying to call in people from the 50 percent, the 75 percent and the 90 percent circle. I have a totally different call-out strategy for the 25 and the zeros. Now, the 25 percenters, sometimes you can talk to them, but I think that the people who could best influence them would be people like my mom and dad, because my mom can go to the left or the

right, depending on which value string is plucked, because she could use her religious background to talk that God talked to the 25 percenters and still pull them towards us. But if I don't pay attention to my mom, the 25 percenters will pull her towards them, because she doesn't believe in a lot of what I believed in about women's rights and gay rights and trans rights. She would be totally bewildered by all of that. But for the zero percenters, they know better. They are hypocrites and cynics. They're manipulating people's needs and fears so that they can remain in power.

And that's the people I'm going to always call out. So I'm not confused that calling in is not for every situation. But I do give people the benefit of the doubt. But then at the same time, like Maya Angelou says, when people show you who they are, believe them. So I'm definitely one of those. They have shown me who they are when they tried to bring down our democracy by refusing to accept the results of a democratic election.

Do you think the rioters and those who sympathize with them, I mean, we're talking about a large number of people when you include the latter category, those who sympathize with them, a large number of people with whom we share this country. Where is your optimism level around peaceful cohabitation, if not mutual understanding? Well, the lion shares the forest with deer, too. But the deer can make all the offers they want. But if the lion is determined to only see the deer as prey, that is not equal power relationships there. And so I'm very willing to give people in the 25% the benefit of the doubt. I mean,

I've worked to deprogram people in the hate movement, former Ku Klux Klansmen and Aryan Nations members and militia members. So it's not that I don't think people can change, but the desire for change for all of those people I've deprogrammed came from within. It did not come from without. Nothing anybody said to them could have made them change their minds. They had to have those epiphanies on their own and then slow walk themselves back into normal society. It's just impossible to make anybody on the left or the right change their minds just because someone contradicts their views. They have to decide that they can't stand the cognitive dissonance between how good they think they are on the inside and how badly

they're behaving towards others. But my concern is that, use the phrase normal society, it seems like the fringe has become mainstream. We have got dozens and dozens, scores of members of Congress who, even after the place was stormed, are talking about a rigged and stolen election. That kind of talk used to be relegated to the fringes of our society on the left and the right. And now it's like, you know, if not mainstream, certainly closer. Well, I'm sure you've heard of the concept of the Overton window. And it's shifted so far to the right that what was fringe has become mainstream within the Republican Party. When David Duke used to, you know, David Duke, he's a Klansman who ran for governor of Louisiana and stuff. When he formed his new Klan group and he started saying that we should bar all non-white immigrants to this country, that this should be a white country only, that only white voters should matter.

All of those things he said in the 1970s and 80s, people poo-pooed as the fringe. And then we watch not David Duke, but his ideas march from thelike system in America so that only white people have any power and only white people get to march into the Capitol without fear of police, that's not a sustainable democracy. And I don't know how we can persuade them that you can't sign up for a pluralistic democracy and then just turn it all over just because you lose an election. So where does that leave us? Where does it leave us? It's a question of where it leaves them. Because we're moving towards the future and they're trying to refight the Civil War. So, I mean, I'm not sure how successful they're going to be rolling time backwards. I think there's too many forces, universal and political and social and emotional, against them.

Let's talk about some of the material that got me and my team very interested in you and your work initially before the horror at the U.S. Capitol. Can you talk about the difference between calling in and calling out? Oh, I love talking about the difference between calling in and calling out. Back in 2015, my grandson never answered his phone. And I finally pleaded with him, how do I reach you? And he said, well, grandma, get on Facebook. And so I got on Facebook and he immediately migrated off of it because he was for old folks, he said. And so, but once I got on Facebook, I noticed how mean people were being to each other through social media. And so when I asked one of the young students I was working with

about what was going on, she said, oh, you mean the call-out culture? And I said, y'all have named it? And she said, yeah. And I said, well, Marissa, what are y'all doing about it? Because I've seen people say things online that I don't think they'd say to each other in person. I mean, I'm pretty old and I've been through a lot of social justice movements. Back in the 70s, there was a part of you that had to be in face-to-face conversations. And when I asked her, well, what are y'all doing about it? She kind of shrugged her shoulders, just walked away. Like, is there anything that can be done about it? And that's when I started reviewing, at that time, you know, my close to 50 years of experience doing social justice work.

And I said, well, there are things we can do about it. Because I live in Atlanta, and I've heard the stories of how the civil rights leaders fought behind closed doors but presented a united front when it was time to take on Jim Crow segregation. I've been in the women's movement. We always fight within the women's movement, but we're united in dismantling patriarchy and sexism. I mean, we don't all belong to one organization. We're a movement because we have

a lot of different thoughts, but we're all moving in the same direction. That's what a movement does. When you have the same thought and you're moving in the same direction, that's what a cult does. And we are not a cult. And so I've been in social justice movements for civil rights, And so I've been in social justice movements for civil rights, women's rights, human rights, disability rights, that successfully had the political debates that you're supposed to have in a pluralistic society, but didn't turn on each other, but turn to each other when it was time to face an opponent. But something's happened with this social media landscape. And so when Marissa walked away and she had no solution to the call-out culture, I said, well, we actually called each other in. Even if we didn't agree, we called each other in so that we could be stronger together. And so back to your question, a calling in is simply a call out done with love and respect. It's that you hold people accountable for things that either they've done or you think they've done. But instead of responding with anger and shame and blame, you pause to give them the benefit of the doubt because you might have misinterpreted.

They might have misstated it. They may regret what they've done in the past. If you give people the benefit of the doubt, you actually get a chance to peer into their heart instead of just react to their words. of just react to their words. And so I believe in holding people accountable, but I choose to do so with grace and forgiveness as opposed to anger and punishment. Because the other thing that's contradictory for me is that if I'm an opponent of the prison industrial complex, well, why am I using its techniques on other people who I think have done wrong? And certainly, I've never led a blameless, mistake-free life. I mean, I had to learn in my 20s to forgive myself for my little mistakes because I knew I'd make bigger ones later on. And so if I can feel that about myself, why can't I feel that about others?

Because other people are as complicated as I am. I give them that benefit too. And so a calling in for somebody who says something sexist would be, you know, when you used that word the other day, I'm not sure what you meant by it. Do you mind if we go out and have some coffee to talk about it? Or sometimes you can just say something simple like, I beg your pardon, and then pause and let them rethink their own words. You haven't called them out. You haven't accused them of anything. You've just indicated that may not have landed the way you meant that to be.

just indicated that may not have landed the way you meant that to be. I'm also critical of holding people, punishing people for things that they did a long time ago, because people do change, people do grow. And so if somebody does something wrong when they were a stupid teenager, and we all did wrong things when we were stupid teenagers, when they were a stupid teenager, and we all did wrong things when we were stupid teenagers. And then years later, it's found out about them. I'm first going to give them the due process of an investigation to see where they are now. I'm going to assume that they did the stupid thing as a teenager, but I'm going to see where you are now before I weaponize that knowledge against you, because I'm going to give you the grace of expecting that you learn from it. Now, if you haven't shown that you've grown, then I'm going to use another tactic. A few moments ago, you described the move of calling

in rather than calling out is a choice, that you make the choice to do this in a sort of large-hearted way where you're willing to give people grace to not presume the worst about them, to try to see it from their point of view. I just look at my own mind, and I feel so many times I have not made that choice. How do we get better at building the decision to make that choice as a reflex? It takes a lot of years. And here I am almost 70 years old and I'm still working on myself. So I can't say it's easy, even as an elder. Again, I tell things through stories. When I was 25, I became the director of a rape crisis center,

the DC Rape Crisis Center. And we got approached by men who were incarcerated for raping and murdering women. And one guy, William Fuller, wrote us this letter. And basically, William said, outside I raped women, inside I'm raping men, and I don't want to be a rapist anymore. Can you imagine a group of rape survivors getting that kind of letter. I mean, we were like horrified. We barely had enough resources to help the survivors that were calling our hotline. And here's a perpetrator asking us for help. So it sat there simmering on our souls for a number of months before we could even answer. But he wasn't going anywhere.

He was incarcerated for life. an answer, but he wasn't going anywhere. He was incarcerated for life. And so finally, I got in my car and drove to Lorton, which was then DC's jail, and went through the strip search to get, I had never been in a prison before, so I didn't know how humiliating it was to even be a visitor to a prison. And it was just really an awful experience. But once I got to meet with William, I found out that he was in his mid-30s. He had raped and murdered a woman when he was 18. And somehow between 18 and 35, he'd gotten hold of some Black feminist literature. And it had changed his consciousness. and it had changed his consciousness. And he was scary as all get out, not because of his affect, but because of his body. If you are the rapist, the big buff man in the prison,

that means you're working out. You're building up your body. You got these muscles that are bulging through shirts and stuff like that, because that's what you do not to be a victim when you're incarcerated. So he went in as a skinny little 18-year-old, and by the time I met him 17 years later, he was a scary SOB, I'm telling you. And the six other men he bought to meet with me were also big and intimidating. So they were not the victims of the prison. They were the big boys of the prison wanting to be different. And so we started, well, first of all, we set up some rules because we were like, okay, whatever y'all think we're going to do, we are not bringing y'all no cigarettes, no drugs, no tennis shoes. We're not writing any letters of pardon or support to the parole board.

We are not here to be used by you. But if you're honest about wanting some conversation around feminism and how you can stop the rape culture, we're here for you. And so for two and a half years, we would go there every Friday, rotating every Friday to have two-hour sessions with these men. In my library today, I still have multiple copies of books because I'd have to buy six books, take them to the prison. They could read them, then I had to bring those same six books back out. And so now when people look at my library, they say, why do you have like five or six copies of the same book? Did you forget you had bought it? But I tell you that story to say that was when I confronted my first big demon that I internalized because I'm a rape and incest survivor. That's what brought

me to the Rape Crisis Center in the first place. And once I heard the stories of how those men had been violated before they became violators, because they had been also molested as children. No one comes out the womb saying, I'm just going to mess people up. Human rights violators are created. They're not born. And so I found a little bit of my hatred of rapists, a little bit, not all of it, but a little bit of my hatred of rapists getting eroded. who died the same day Congressman John Lewis died. But he was my boss. He was my mentor at what was the National Anti-Klan Network, which had become the Center for Democratic Renewal. And Reverend Vivian always said to us,

when you ask people to give up hate, then you need to be there for them when they do. And the first time he said that, I muttered under my breath, oh, because you can't curse in front of a minister. So I couldn't say it out loud, but that's what I felt. Because as a Black woman monitoring the Ku Klux Klan, I had no problems dehumanizing them because they dehumanized me. And you're talking about lynchings. I went to Blakely, Georgia, to investigate a fire in a black home two blocks from the fire department that burnt up a five-year-old black child because the Klan was running the fire department. I mean, how am I supposed to give up hate when I have to investigate the death of a five-year-old from a fire when the fire department was only two blocks away and didn't come until two hours later? I mean, this is just what we deal with when you have, you know, hate group members infiltrating law enforcement and fire departments

and hospitals and stuff like that. And so when Reverend Vivian told us that we needed to be there for them when they do, I didn't get it. I didn't agree. I actually had conversations with my friends. I said, you know, Jesus said, turn the other cheek, but I'm tired of my cheeks being bloody. I really, really am. I am not trying to audition for Jesus' job. I really am having trouble with this. And so one day I get a call, this deep voice says, And one day I get a call, this deep voice says, can I speak to Leonard Zeskin? And Leonard was our research director who led the work in meeting with people who had left the hate movement. He would do the actual deprogramming. So I said, OK, who's calling?

This is Floyd Cochran. I said, the Floyd Cochran? Because I monitor this guy. I knew exactly who he was. He was the national spokesman for Richard Butler's Aryan Nation in Hayden Lake, Idaho. Yes, this is Floyd Cochran, and I want to talk to Leonard Sestin. And I said, want to talk to Leonard Sestin. And I said, can I take a message for him? That's all I could do. And so I gave Leonard the message. It turns out that Floyd's second son had been born with a cleft palate. And his Aryan Nazi buddies told him that his son was a genetic defect who needed to be put to death because good Aryans didn't deal with disabled people. They put them to death. After Floyd realized that, he started asking questions of Pastor Richard Butler, as they called him. He only got a chance to ask questions for a couple

of weeks before Butler kicked him off the compound. Now, Floyd had been a Nazi from age 14. He was now in his late 30s. He knew the Bible inside out. He was the best recruiter that the Aryan nations had ever seen. He was nationally traveling and all of this. And so Pastor Butler, he's CC, so I'll try to be respectful, kicked Floyd off the compound, and so he was at the end of the rope when he called our organization because we were known for helping people leave the hate movement, so Lenny talked to him for a number of weeks, gave him food to eat, and helped him find a hotel room to stay in and stuff like that. And then he was turned over to me for his re-entry back into society.

And so when I first met Floyd, he was a very thin, five foot seven, five foot eight guy with a beard who smoked cigarettes and drank coffee incessantly. I don't know if I ever saw Floyd eat. All he ever did was drink black coffee and smoke cigarettes. He was very intense, very tightly wound. But one of the things that was haunting Floyd was that he had recruited these two brothers named Freeman in Allentown, Pennsylvania, into the skinhead movement, into the Aryan Nations over a number of years. He got them when they were 14 or 15 years old. I'm not sure the ages. But one night, the two kids came home and murdered their entire family. Wow. Their mother, their father, their 12-year-old brother. Floyd thought that this was his responsibility because he had bought those kids into the hate movement.

And so what Floyd wanted to do was do a tour of atonement. He wanted to apologize for all the harm he had done that he was now reckoning with. He particularly wanted to go back to Pennsylvania and talk to the people in Allentown because that was a horrific crime to take place. He wanted to dissuade other alienated white kids from joining the hate movement. So we ended up on this tour of apology. And it was in the process of learning to talk to people like Floyd that I saw his humanity. He had joined the Nazis at 14 because he was a small, skinny kid that got bullied in this all-white portion of upstate New York. He'd never met a Jewish person. He'd never met a Black person. But he found out that when he put on that Nazi insignia, instead of him being afraid, everybody was afraid of him.

It's just that simple. And so I don't want to tell too long a story, but this is the truth. This is what I've lived through. And when you learn to meet the human beings behind the hatred, it's very hard to continue to hate them. Now, 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? I mean, I kind of like tell myself, get over yourself, kid. If you can figure out how to see the humanity of people who have done actual harm to others, like the rapists, most of them had murdered the women that they had raped. Then everybody else is just a problematic ally. You just got to figure out how you can work with them.

That's what I honestly feel in my heart. If you can't hate the Klan, who's left? Much more of my conversation with Loretta Ross right after this. Maybe you've stayed in an Airbnb before and thought to yourself, this actually seems pretty doable. Maybe my place could be an Airbnb. It could be as simple as starting with a spare room or your whole place when you're away. You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. I personally love Airbnbs. My friend Glenn and I just rented an Airbnb in Fort Lauderdale. We're going to bring our families

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If you have a few minutes, it would be awesome if you could do us a solid by answering a survey about your experience with this podcast. The team is always looking for ways to improve. We'd love to hear from all of you. In particular, we'd like to hear from anybody who listens to this show but doesn't use our companion app. Please go to 10percent.com forward slash survey, 10percent.com forward slash survey, link in the show notes. Thank you, and let's get back now to my conversation with Loretta Ross. As I listened to the extraordinary work you've done, these incredible stories, and I consider the toxicity of our dialogue in pretty much every nook and cranny

of our culture right now. And not many of us will have the experiences that you've had. Not many of us will be trained by life in the way that you have to develop new muscles to call in rather than call out. So I guess I'm wondering what advice, if any, would you have for, you know, people who can hear the sound of your voice right now? Well, first of all, I teach these techniques online for $5 a class. So it's not like I'm that smart and only I can figure this out. It's about, first of all, understanding how you were taught as a child to be accountable for your own mistakes. Were you punished? Were you trained?

Were you punished? Were you trained? Were you forgiven? How are your fight, flight, or freeze instincts formed as a child? So in my first class, I'm going to ask that question. And whatever those patterns were as a child are the same patterns you visit on other people for making mistakes. So you're going to ask yourself, how well did that work for me when I didn't know something? And you ask yourself, how well is this serving me to carry these grudges? Am I happier because I'm carrying this grudge? Am I happier because I just blew up somebody else's life? Am I wondering if I should walk on eggshells in case somebody blows up mine? I mean, these are ways that we can choose to be more at peace with ourselves by, first of all,

figuring out how we got to where we are and making different choices to not rob ourselves of our own peace, happiness, and sanity. And these are all teachable things. I'm no psychologist. I'm an organizer, a community organizer. And since I started teaching five years ago, I'm a fake academic. But these are all learnable things. If a 25-year-old rape survivor can learn to talk to rapists, you're telling me I can't talk to the person who calls me the colored girl because they don't know that that's an inappropriate word right now? What you just said there reminds me of something you wrote.

You wrote an excellent op-ed in the New York Times, which I'll put a link to in the show notes here. And I just want to read one paragraph from it that struck me as maybe provocative for some people. So I'll put a link to in the show notes here. And I just want to read one paragraph from it that struck me as maybe provocative for some people. So I'll just read it. You wrote, can we avoid individualizing oppression and not use the movement as our personal therapy space? Thus, even as an incest and hate crime survivor, I have to recognize that not every flirtatious man is a potential rapist, nor every racially challenged white person is a Trump supporter. In particular there, the provocative bit, potentially for some people, would be the idea of using a movement as personal therapy. Well, I actually have high theory that I can describe that with and just personal experience.

So I'm not quite sure which way you want me to go. Either way. that with and just personal experience. So I'm not quite sure which way you want me to go. Either way. But let's start with the high theory because I think it needs to be examined. I mean, we've had about whiteness studies around since the early 1990s. I think the first book was written by David Roediger about 1990, 1991. Don't quote me on the dates, but I'm pretty clear when that started to happen. And I think it is very necessary for white people to examine their whiteness and how it was constructed. At the same time, the way it's being examined lands on a potential solution that says, and now you have to give up your whiteness,

pretend that you're not white, pretend that you don't want to enjoy white privilege. And I'm like, wait a moment, nobody's in the womb saying, oh, I'm going to be born white, or I'm going to be born black, or I'm going to be born a woman. These are characteristics you have absolutely no control of. So how are you supposed to heal from this trauma and fight white supremacy by pretending not to be white? So they have a good analysis that lands at a false solution for me, because all that has done is produce a whole lot of white guilt that's brought to the movement. Instead of the movement being an organizing space to overcome injustice, it's serving as a therapy space

for people to deal with their guilt about their immutable characteristics that they have no control over. You can't change who you are. You can change what you do. And that then will change who you are. And so instead of whiteness studies ending up in white fragility, I'd rather whiteness studies ending up in white courage. I'd rather us reading the stories about Viola Louso or the other early white people who participated in the movement, sometimes giving their lives. I want to know more about the white abolitionists in the Civil War, the white people even in the South who fought against slavery. I want to know more about those stories that have been totally obliterated from the history books. And it's only because

I've seen it from the Black side of things that I even know they exist. Most white people don't even know those things exist, that those people exist every day. But it's just like the white person in the Starbucks who pulled out her cell phone to record what was going on when these two Black men were arrested for sitting at a Starbucks. I mean, we can lift up the stories of white courage instead of waddling in the morass of white guilt and fragility. And so that's my critique, both academically and politically, of how Whiteness studies does a great analysis of how whiteness got created as an artificial category. But just because they made it up, it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. And then what can be done about it? How can it be used to defeat the ideology of white supremacy?

Because white supremacy is an ideology. It's not a race of people. All white supremacists aren't white and not all white people are white supremacists. So if you can separate the ideas from the skin color, you can actually do some good work. I want to follow up on that. I'll just call out that you may hear a call out. That's a loaded phrase in this context.

I'll just point out that you may hear a little background noise because I have an insistent feline who's on my lap now. I just want to be clear. You said something about how you think that white people should work to understand their own whiteness, and you don't want the movement for equality to be completely stuck in therapy. So how do you do both at the same time? You know, that's a debate I have in all of my online classes, which are majority white, I admit, because that's who's drawn to trying to learn how to live in this world differently for the most part, but that's fine. And the debate is amongst the white participants in my class, the majority of them, how much time do we spend getting to know and trust each other to do the

work? That's their position. And I come at it a different way. Why don't you do the work first and develop whether you can trust and get to know each other? You'll find out who people are by working with them, by expecting them to do something that they've taken responsibility for and they don't. Or expecting them to build space or give up airspace to somebody whose voice needs to be heard. All of those kinds of things. It's through the work you'll find out who they are and who you are. But if you're waiting to build these bonds of relationship and trust and self-disclosure before you do the work, then you're working on the premise that the people who know you can't hurt you. That has not been my experience. I frankly think the people that hurt me the worst are the ones that are close to me. So that's a theory that I think is born of

white supremacy. That's what I call the kith and kin system of care, which means that you're taught to only care for people who you can relate to, who look like you. And then that ends your circle of care and compassion. And everybody else is the other. And I start on the other end. I care about myself and my own integrity. That defines who I want to care about. And then because I want to be true to my integrity,

I want to work with everybody who's able to be worked with. And then develop through that work relationship, how I feel about them. You know, I feel like you're a fellow human being. I'll find out whether you're a good movement person by working with you. But I'm not going to sit around in some discussion group with time, three-minute stories. Oh, let's pass the baton. Let me tell you about how my family was. Let me tell you about sometimes somebody didn't respect me. Or, you know, I have therapists where I do that work for.

And they get paid very well to listen to my sad stories. But I don't organize so that I can create therapy spaces for people that are supposed to be working because they claim they want to end oppression. Let me go back to training the muscle to call in rather than call out. Because on this show, I am very interested in sort of training the mind. We talk a lot about meditation. And so when you talked about teaching people to build the muscle to call in rather than call out, the first thing you, I believe, referenced doing is getting people to look at their own personal histories and how were they punished and how do they visit that sort of conscious or unconscious justice delivery mechanism upon the people in their world. Where do you go after that? Well, then it gets to examining how do you

walk through the world right now? You know, what are things that you see around you that you wish you could speak up on and what's keeping you from doing that right now? Let's go there. And then show me times when you have been brave. Show me times when you have said, no, I can't take this anymore or this is wrong and stuff like that. So it's clear that every human being that are basically on this side of sanity have both of those things in their souls. So I want to build up that good stuff in you and let you deal with the bad stuff in you because I'm not your judge and jury. I am a co-worker who's interdependent on you, who believe we share this fragile planet together. So I need you to be in this planet as healthy and as fruitful and as generous as you can be so that I don't have to fight you as well as fight the people who have no intention of being any better.

as well as fight the people who have no intention of being any better. What are the downsides of the call-out culture? What are the deleterious societal impacts of this dynamic? I think the most toxic impacts is that it makes people afraid to share their honest thoughts for fear that they'll be jumped on or that someone will pillory them. And so it impoverishes our shared pool of knowledge because people withhold their honest selves and they start performing. Oh, let me curate what I've got to say before I say it or not say it in case I don't get the words right or let me avoid the conflict or watch some people have a calling out conflict and just become a bystander.

And I think I have anything I can do helpful to move us past this point. I think it makes people afraid to be real. I think it makes more people use it sometimes as self-aggrandizement, as a way to send out their own little woke signals and virtue signals and how great I am because I identified this person was wrong, this person is toxic or manipulative or dishonest. And then they lethally and almost sadistically attach those labels to people. And quite often, whatever the person actually did that the person believes they needed that label for is lost in the exaggeration. So it might be you use the word colored women is when it should have been women of color.

Well, once I call you a racist, the fact that you just transposed the phrase is going to be lost in the fact that everything else you do is going to be interpreted through a racist lens. There's no forgiveness there. It's a presumption of guilt instead of innocence. There's no forgiveness there. It's a presumption of guilt instead of innocence. And I've gone from attacking the words you use to now attacking your fundamental character, your moral worth as a human being. And moreover, when I see you out to dinner with somebody, then I'm going to assume that person is racist too, because they're hanging out with you.

And I've already known you're a racist. So of course, that person must be a racist too, because they're hanging out with you. And I've already known you're a racist. So of course, that person must be a racist too. And it just goes on and on and on. So those are some of the harms of the call-out culture. I could talk about them at length. Uncle Frank at the Thanksgiving table will say something really awful. Like, I don't think those Mexicans should come here and take our jobs, for example. And people sit back because they don't want to confront Uncle Frank. They don't want to blow up the Thanksgiving dinner table. They don't want to be seen as the PC cops trying to police Uncle Frank and all of that, or basically blow up their relationship

with Uncle Frank. So I teach people, you don't have to call Uncle Frank out. You can call Uncle Frank in. You know, Uncle Frank, every time you say that word, even though I'm not Mexican, it hurts me. Do you want to hurt me like that? Do you love me, Uncle Frank? You know, just ask some basic questions. Uncle Frank, I really love my relationship with you. Can we talk about why you use words that hurt me? And can you choose to use words that won't hurt me, at least in my presence? But that is assuming that you care enough about Uncle Frank to treat him with respect, even if you disagree with what he says. But if you use his words as an excuse to not respect him and to ruin the relationship that you have with him,

then that's a different choice. I'm saying that we have choices with Uncle Frank at the dinner table without blowing up the relationship or blowing up Thanksgiving. Have you gotten pushback for this call-in preference? I mean, I know you signed that controversial Harper's letter that if people aren't familiar with it, it's basically a lot of people, sort of prominent intellectuals signed this letter that was critical of the so-called cancel culture, which is related to the call-out culture. So have you gotten called out for calling in? Well, I must be doing something right because the right wing calls me out and the left wing calls me out for preaching the doctrine of

calling in. So obviously I'm not doing it to make a lot of friends or anything. I kind of think it's a bit ironic that I get called out for criticizing the call out culture by both the left and the right. It doesn't affect my relationship with my own integrity, though, because your reputation is what other people think they know about you. Your integrity is what you know about yourself. So says Lois McMaster Bujo, a very famous science fiction writer I adore. And so I quote Lois when I think I'm confused and I offer her wisdom to anybody else. Don't spend a lot of time trying to protect your reputation. Spend all your time protecting your integrity because you're the person you have to sleep with every night. The criticism from the left, if I understand it, is that, you know, calling in rather than calling out can serve only to protect people's white fragility.

calling in rather than calling out can serve only to protect people's white fragility. What do you say when people say, you know, if you're coddling people who are, I don't know, transgressing in one way or another, you're just going to, you know, allow them to get more firmly entrenched in their white privilege or whatever? Well, as a black woman who goes around saying the phrase white supremacy as often as I can to white people and watching them gag on it, I don't think I'm coddling them at all. I mean, this is what I do as an anti-fascist activist and researcher. I teach about the ideology of white supremacy. So that doesn't sound like I'm softening my message. It doesn't sound like I'm euphemizing what is going on.

I just don't fail to see the humanity of the people caught up in this system. And that's all I'm saying. I use the word white supremacy very selectively to talk about people who adhere to a certain body of ideas. I don't use it loosely to say it's all white people, no more than I use the word sexist to say it's all men, or all black men are actually rapists, even though the men who raped me were black. I mean, you just don't do that. I can't do that. I wasn't able to do that when I was 14 years old. I certainly can't do it at 67 because I had five wonderful brothers and a father who were not the men who raped me. So, I mean, it wouldn't make sense to go in that kind of

dogmatic binary thinking that too many people are trapped in. Tell me if I'm restating this correctly, but it seems like the nub of your message is you reserve the right to criticize systems and structures and even people who you disagree with. You also, at the same time, reserve the right to see the humanity in everybody. Right. I mean, I have to honestly say that if Donald Trump were in my backyard drowning in my swimming pool, as much as I hate what he did, I'd still throw him a life raft.

Because it's not about whether or not Donald Trump deserves to be saved, but do I deserve to be his executioner? And I don't think so. You know, Bryan Stevenson taught us that lesson from the Equal Justice Initiative. It's not that he's done wrong. Do you deserve to kill him for it? You know, and I'm like, no, I'd throw him a life raft. Didn't put him in jail. I'd throw him a life raft.

Because I don't have, you know, it's like I'm not that innocent a person. And again, in a way, I pity the man, because as I read his niece's book about how dysfunctional and toxic his father was, I mean, what child could have come out right under that kind of toxic environment? And so there's a part of my heart that feels sorry for him, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't hold him accountable for what he's done. But I wouldn't let him drown in my swimming pool either. That's what being a complicated person is. Yeah, it feels to me just like seeing things as they are. Yeah, I'd rather see things as they are than as I wish they were. Because then I can build the things I want to see if I pay attention to reality.

I should also say I'm kind of left-brained because I majored in chemistry and physics, so I've always kind of had this kind of linear thinking. I think that like any science experience, you're going to experiment with stuff 99 times before you land on the 100th time that's right. And human beings are no different. You're going to try 99 different strategies for changing a human heart and mind till you land on that sweet spot that actually works. And I don't get mad at them because the 99 other ways didn't work. It's all a big experiment anyway. We're going to post this interview on MLK Day, and America will still be in the throes of post-capital riot agony. What's your most optimistic forecast for how we operate and talk to one another as a country going forward from here? Well, first of all, I'm a Black woman. And I come from a lineage of people that for 400 years have

never given up hope. Because if they had given up hope, I wouldn't be here able to talk to you. because if they had given up hope, I wouldn't be here able to talk to you. And so I'm a good promoter of hope because that's what I've had to do to survive. That's what my foreparents that I can trace back to 1844 in Central Texas had to do to survive. So I find that white people generally give in to cynicism and despair too easily. Maybe that's a culture that creates that. I don't know. But we've withstood some of the worst things human beings can do to each other. And we still have not given up faith in each other and our ability to build a better world.

We know we're citizens of a country that has not yet come to be. We've known that all along. So that's what gives me hope because I've got these ancestors chanting in my heart saying, you can do this, you can do this. I've got a lot of fundamental belief in the goodness of humanity. I mean, even the worst people I met in the world actually had kindness in them. I've just found astonishing grace in the most unlikely people in places. And if I can offer people the insight of my experiences to be able to see with my eyes how the most unlikely, the most improbable circumstances can show you how wonderful

this world can be, then you'll get through this life pretty well. I find that as hard as it is to realize that we're the creators of our own unhappiness too often. I mean, you can't control whether you get COVID. You may not be able to control. My sister just died a week, six days ago. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. I mean, I could be Debbie Downer on your show, but I'm enjoying the fact that I had her in my life for 66 years before she died. I'm going to celebrate her life, not just mourn her passing. And she was my second sister to die within 12 months. I should add that COVID and everything else is ravaging my community. And I still have not lost my hope that we're going to get through this

and that we're going to get through this in a way that's going to astonish us because we do have this depth of resilience. And I'm talking about us collectively, not just alleged resilience of Black women treated as mules and saviors in the same breath. But this resilience in the human spirit that I just find so awesome. And like I said, I expect people who are outwardly nice to do wonderful things.

But when I see it out of somebody that has every reason not to be nice and kind, do something wonderful, I'm just awed by that. So how can I judge you by your social location or your privileges until I get an idea of seeing what happened to you and what did you make of it? Loretta, it's been a total pleasure to sit with you for a little while. Thank you. I've never had an interviewer that let me talk so much. Most people are on the air because they love hearing their own voices. Don't get me wrong. No, I love hearing my own voice. Love it. But I prefer to hear yours. Well, thank you. Big thanks again to Loretta. It was great to meet her virtually. Thank you as well to everybody who works so hard to make this show a reality.

Samuel Johns is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our producer. Jules Dodson is our AP. Our sound designer is Matt Boynton from Ultraviolet Audio. Maria Wartell is our production coordinator. We get a ton of really helpful input from our TPH colleagues, such as Ben Rubin, Nate Tobey, Jen Point, Liz Levin. I should also mention Ray Hausman weighs in on occasion with very helpful notes as well. Thank you, Ray. Also, a big thank you to my ABC News comrades, Ryan Kessler and Josh Cohan. We'll see you all on Wednesday for a great conversation with a teacher named Jozen Tamori Gibson. We're talking about a classic Buddhist list, The Five Precepts. That's on Wednesday. The Five Precepts.

That's on Wednesday. If you like 10% Happier, and I hope you do, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. Where can I get help hiring people with disabilities? There are hundreds of thousands of Canadians with disabilities who are ready to work. And many local organizations are available to help you find qualified candidates and make your workplace more accessible and inclusive.

Visit Canada.ca slash right here to connect with one near you today. A message from the Government of Canada.ca slash right here to connect with one near you today. A message from the government of Canada. Today, hip hop dominates pop culture, but it wasn't always like that. And to tell the story of how that changed, I want to take you back to a very special year in rap. 88, it was too much good music. The world was on fire. I'm Will Smith. This is Class of 88, my new podcast about the moments, albums, and artists that inspired a sonic revolution

and secured 1988 as one of hip-hop's most important years. We'll talk to the people who were there. And most of all, we'll bring you some amazing stories. You know what my biggest memory from that tour is? It was your birthday. Yes, and you brought me to Shod Day, life-size hardboard cutout. This is Class of 88, the story of a year that changed hip-hop. Follow Class of 88 on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.