loading . . . Loretta Ross’s Calling In Loretta J. Ross’s _Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You’d Rather Cancel_ was published in 2025 by Simon & Schuster.
In Perilous Times, Calling In is a Double-Edged Sword
Meredith D. Clark
Critiquing Softly
Jo Freeman
Emotions in Loretta Ross’s Theory of Calling In
Stephanie M. Ortiz
Revolutionary Feminism in the Age of Calling In
Carmen Perez-Jordan
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A Response
Loretta J. Ross
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Short Takes: Provocations on Public Feminism, an open-access feature of _Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society_ , offers brief comments from prominent feminists about a book that has shaped popular conversations about feminist issues. Short Takes is part of the Feminist Public Intellectuals Project.
# In Perilous Times, Calling In is a Double-Edged Sword
**Meredith D. Clark**
Meredith D. Clarke
I have to admit I’ve had beef with Prof. Loretta Ross for years.
OK, not with _her –_ God knows it’s enough for me to openly and pointedly disagree with my Black feminist elders on the academic record. But with her argument that so-called “cancel culture” is toxic. Not because she’s wrong, but because her arguments, coupled with her visibility and positionality, have been misappropriated by people like President Barack Obama to silence protesters during the Movement for Black Lives.
Calling out bad behavior online, I’ve argued, is the last seemingly effective tool the chronically devalued have to demand accountability in a society driven by the consuming crush of capitalism, where attention has become a key driver of the economy. My own background in journalism and media studies, my ethnographic immersion in Black Twitter (the portal for “cancel culture’s” entry into the zeitgeist), and my theoretical orientation to discourses of digital conflict prime me to disagree so strongly with Ross that I preemptively dismissed the book as a useful tool for powerful people – usually white, usually male – to disregard the othered.
And that is precisely her point. Rather than extending grace on the foundation of shared values, activists and their allies who “cancel” one another are responding out of (self-)righteous conviction and hurt. They cannibalize one another over tests of purity (ranging from grammatical to ideological), ultimately hampering their ability to advance collective action.
Her argument makes _Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You’d Rather Cancel_ the right book at the wrong time – or perhaps the wrong book for the wrong population.
Ross’s arguments are a welcome salve for those who appreciate the difference between liberty and liberation. However, I fear that her insights are easily co-opted by the same individuals and institutions bent on domination. Context collapse, fostered by the social-media amplification of in-group call-outs among activists, has enabled conservative, well-platformed thought leaders to recode and dismiss discursive demands for accountability as “cancel culture.” The lasting effect has delegitimized a tool that some of the most vulnerable among us have for finally making their voices widely heard.
In an authoritarian age, when our already deeply flawed norms of what constitutes civil engagement have been usurped by trolling as the most effective mode of public discourse, arguments about how to engage opposition require a paradoxically reductive strategy: readers must understand that despite the promise of Ross’s “5 Cs Continuum” for building bridges across divisions, the work only works with willing counterparts.
Case in point: The central flaw in Ross’s argument is found in the book’s most powerful narrative. While working as a rape crisis counselor in Washington, D.C., Ross was invited into a prison by a convicted rapist who professed a desire to stop raping. Ross presents her choice to accept this invitation –which ultimately led to a series of conversations and workshops in the prison that taught the men Black feminist and nonviolent principles– as her core example of the power of choosing to call even the most reprehensible offenders in. The narrative ignores perhaps the most significant insight about the entire example: the shift of power precedes the invitation to being called in. The men _first_ took responsibility for the harm they caused and resolved within themselves to change. That this truth is overlooked fundamentally undercuts the purported efficacy of Ross’s strategies.
Still, readers can learn from her masterclass in harnessing interiority and reflection to render Black feminist autoethnography for broad audiences. As a MacArthur Genius grant winner and longtime reproductive justice advocate, Ross draws upon her years of activism and advocacy to offer a marketable remedy for the modern culture of intolerance. The book is a welcome guide for well-intentioned workers seeking to reclaim allies and accomplices for the work of resisting oppression.
But like metal cutlery in prison, even an inert tool can be wielded as a fatal weapon by those determined to cause harm in a hostile environment.
**Meredith D. Clark** , PhD, is an associate professor of race and political communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She’s been called out, canceled, and dragged on the Internet for her opinions before.
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# Critiquing Softly
**Jo Freeman**
Jo Freeman
“Practice kindness” is the theme of this book, especially toward those you would rather chastise. Or, as my mother often said, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”
Cancelling is the latest slang term for shunning. Calling out is acerbic denunciation.
In my day, we called it trashing. However, trashing was done behind your back, rarely to your face. You saw, or felt, the results but couldn’t confront the source(s) directly. In today’s social media, it’s often done online, where anyone can read it. It is possible to reply, which doesn’t mean anyone will listen.
This book is timely because social media has made verbal attacks so easy. People will type words onto a screen that they wouldn’t say to another human face, even if the person attacked isn’t the one they are speaking to. They can also reach vastly more people. They do it mostly because it makes them feel good, and sometimes to show off.
Ross proposes various forms of “calling in” as a more productive and kinder way to criticize or disagree. But her solutions have a lot to do with getting along with people you need to get along with, not someone you want to go away, or someone you know only by name or reputation. As she says, “calling in works on the assumption that people want to work well together but need more skills to do so. [They] are focused on in-person conversations.”
She doesn’t really tell you how to call in high-profile cases. Or distant ones. It can be done, but it doesn’t get the attention that calling out does.
Our forty-seventh president has been on a rampage of calling out various countries and world leaders, including Canada. How does a country tell a more powerful country to go to hell? Can you do it by “calling in”?
One day in February, I was walking down Pennsylvania Ave. in DC when I passed the Canadian Embassy. Four pillars at the entrance were wrapped in red. Down the side, white letters said:
FRIENDS
PARTNERS
ALLIES
NEIGHBORS
It was a graphic way of calling in. If the embassy had wanted to call out, it might have reminded viewers about the War of 1812, when US troops invaded Canada in hopes of adding it to the US. The Canadians soundly defeated the US. The War of 1812 didn’t turn Canadians into Americans, but it did give us the “Star Spangled Banner.”
To sum up, calling in is a skill that needs to be learned at an early age, like turn taking. In this age of the internet, it’s too easy to do what feels good in the short term, even if it’s destructive in the long term. Better to think first, about what’s good for everyone.
**Jo Freeman** is a feminist scholar, author, and activist. She earned a BA from UC Berkeley in 1965, a PhD in political science from the University of Chicago in 1973 and a JD from New York University School of Law in 1982. She has published 11 books and hundreds of articles on feminism, political parties, social movements, and women’s political history in numerous anthologies, journals, and popular magazines. As a photojournalist, she has documented hundreds of marches, protests, conventions, and speeches around the country.
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# Emotions in Loretta Ross’s Theory of Calling In
**Stephanie M. Ortiz**
Stephanie M. Ortiz
While _Calling In_ is about the strategic uses of calling in and mis/uses of calling out, I also read the book as a bid for feminists to reconsider emotions. Emotional labor and emotion work have been useful conceptual tools for feminists to identify and address exploitation. Indeed, as Loretta Ross points out, some of us may be unwilling to call in because we see it as _extra_ emotional labor. To take on managing the interpersonal aspects of movement building while surviving the daily grind alongside other messy human beings can be seen as an unfair demand. I get it. Calling in can sometimes seem like a performance—like a white millennial, gentle-parenting minstrel show—where you practice calm, connected communication to curb bad behavior, and onlookers affirm you as good, patient, and loving, while casting the Angry Others as unforgiving and cruel. But, as Ross suggests throughout, emotions in our everyday interactions are how we, for better or for worse, become bound to one another, and choosing to always call out does not change that fact.
We might consider what Randall Collins calls interaction rituals: how we transform our cultural capital into emotional energy (long-term emotional tones) in different situations, fortifying group membership and setting the stage for later encounters. People having sex, fans at the Superbowl, and attendees at a lynching are all in situations that heighten emotions and produce social solidarity in distinct ways. So too, the audience member with the how-does-your-research-matter-to-me question, the forever cantankerous colleague who seems to thrive on derailing an agenda, and the student whose favorite classroom pastime is whataboutism, are all participants in emotionally charged situations. How those encounters unfold will reverberate through the connections formed or destroyed and in how all social actors involved proceed in similar situations going forward. What I think Ross does effectively is show how these encounters provide an opportunity to change the emotional tones that structure the work we do. With her three exemplar cases, Ross shows how calling in can strengthen ties across and within organizations and lead to radical outcomes. Calling out, though, can weaken ties and inadvertently undermine goals, destroy morale, and breed unwillingness to collaborate.
The majority of the book is focused on emotional strategies and practical advice for the individual who is in the position to call in or call out, with some guidance for us as individuals who have already been called in _,_ such as how we can apologize and make amends. I do wish there was more consideration of us as people who might be called in, especially the emotions of fear and the defensiveness fear breeds. Ross does discuss why potential allies’ emotions are important, considering how our actions can confirm allies’ suspicions of our inflexibility and drive them away. But the emotional root of that seems undertheorized. Our angry, righteous, I-wish-you-would attitudes can have a time and place, and Ross shows they should not be the default. But what about potential allies’ default emotions? Where is their responsibility to allow themselves to be called in? How might they stop scanning interactions for the proof they need that we’re too concerned with purity tests and being the “wokest” to acknowledge their efforts? How might they search for connection and remain patient when their efforts are met with skepticism, rather than the gratitude or validation they were hoping for?
While Ross does not address this directly, she does offer some clues to the answer, in the form of a culture of calling in. A culture of calling in is one that symbolically supports, rewards, and reproduces the emotions, behaviors, and values that help reach goals. Calling in becomes safe because forgiveness and accountability become the primary frameworks for working through issues. Without a call-in culture, Ross explains, there are few incentives for us to believe we won’t be chewed out. Still, as important as culture is, there also need to be _material_ resources to support calling in. Indeed, there’s something to be said about how one can manage emotions and choose to call in when your organization’s needs are met, when there is time built into the workday to build community so that good faith is much easier to assume of others, and when there’s money to fund training and workshops to practice these skills.
As a piece in service of restorative justice, _Calling In’_ s attention to emotions is powerful and deeply encouraging. Living within these systems of oppression so easily calcifies hate, resentment, anger, disgust, and fear. As a call-out specialist trained in the streets of MiGente, Yahoo! Answers, and Twitter, I know all too well the pleasure in shutting down some bullshit. But there is, as Ross shows, so much promise if we identify the situations in which choosing to call in advances our goals. I hope others will sit with the full range of emotions this book invites them to feel and draw upon the love, time, and care Ross has invested in championing and modeling the vulnerability and work of calling in.
**Stephanie M. Ortiz** is an assistant professor of sociology at UMass Lowell. She writes about race and gender in everyday life, especially how online interactions reshape our ideologies and emotions. Her work has been covered by BBC News and _USA Today_. You can learn more about her research on her website.
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# Revolutionary Feminism in the Age of Calling In
**Carmen Perez-Jordan**
Carmen Perez-Jordan
There is a moment in every movement when the call must shift from resistance to reclamation, from punishment to transformation. _Calling In_ by Loretta J. Ross offers such a moment, a radical reimagining of feminist accountability that demands we rethink what it means to build power. As someone who has been “called out,” or rather “canceled,” on a global scale for organizing one of the largest mass mobilizations in history, the 2017 Women’s March on Washington, I approach this book with an intimate understanding of both the pain and necessity of this discourse. I have lived through the weaponization of call-out culture, endured coordinated misinformation campaigns by foreign operatives, and emerged not unscathed but more deeply committed to nonviolence and justice. This is why Ross’s work matters. This is why it matters now.
Ross speaks to a critical fracture within the feminist zeitgeist, one that reflects both the strength and fragility of modern intersectional organizing. The feminist movement has always been a contested space, particularly for women of color, who are expected to lead the fight but rarely granted the grace to stumble. This dynamic is not new. Throughout history women of color have been instrumental in shaping feminist struggles while simultaneously being sidelined or erased from mainstream narratives.
During the suffrage movement, Black women like Ida B. Wells and Mary Church Terrel fought for voting rights but were often excluded by white suffragists who prioritized their own political gains over racial solidarity. Latinas such as Jovita Idár advocated for both women’s rights and racial justice, yet their contributions remain largely overlooked in mainstream feminist history. And the list goes on and on. Today, these tensions remain evident. Many white women claim to want women of color to lead and to join the movement yet often unconsciously assume ownership of it, acting as gatekeepers rather than equal participants in a shared struggle.
My own experience with the Women’s March exemplifies this. While attempting to build an intersectional, intercultural, intergenerational movement rooted in liberation, I was subjected to relentless scrutiny, false accusations, and ultimately, a global erasure. Although the attack was orchestrated by a foreign intelligence agency intent on destabilizing American democracy, it was white women and a few women of color, many within the Women’s March itself, who weaponized these falsehoods to push us out. The revelation that my cancellation was not simply the result of ideological rifts but of both external interference and internal betrayals forces us to question the structures we have built for accountability. Are we truly dismantling patriarchy and white supremacy, or are we merely replicating their tools in different hands?
Ross argues that calling in, as opposed to calling out, is an act of strategic resistance. It is a choice to build rather than destroy, to educate rather than exile. This approach is not about absolving harm but about refusing to engage in the kind of disposability politics that so often mirrors the very systems we claim to oppose. As a practitioner of Kingian Nonviolence, I recognize the resonance of her call. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. understood that transformation required confronting systems, not just individuals. The goal was never revenge but redemption. This does not mean ignoring harm; it means addressing it in ways that move us toward justice rather than feeding the spectacle of outrage.
This was also the path I had urged members within the Women’s March to take—to truly model what the Beloved Community should look like for the world. To shield us from hate while simultaneously calling us in with love to repair the harm we were accused of causing. There were several opportunities to do this, but they chose otherwise.
So why this? Because feminist organizing is at a crossroads. We are at risk of becoming a movement that punishes before it teaches, that isolates rather than includes. We have lost too many brilliant minds to cancellation, too many movements to ideological purity tests. _Calling In_ offers a way forward, a feminism that is less about expulsion and more about reclamation. Ross challenges us to recognize that true justice does not come from the immediacy of public shaming but from the long, arduous work of transformation.
Why now? Because our enemies are watching. The Russian disinformation campaign that targeted the Women’s March was not an isolated incident. It was a strategy, a blueprint for dismantling progressive movements from the inside out. And it worked. The feminist movement spent years eating itself alive while the real threats—fascism, white supremacy, and the erosion of reproductive rights—gained ground. We cannot afford to keep making the same mistakes. If we do, we are handing victory to those who would see us silenced.
What does this say about the state of the feminist zeitgeist? That we are in a battle not just for equality but for the soul of our movement. That we must decide whether feminism will be a force of liberation or another form of carceral logic, doling out social exile with the same efficiency as the prison-industrial complex. That we need a feminism that can hold nuance, that can distinguish between accountability and annihilation, between harm and irredeemability.
I have felt the sting of exile. I have witnessed how quickly a movement can turn on its own. But I have also seen the resilience of those of us who refuse to be silenced, who choose to rebuild rather than retreat. Calling in is not an easy ask. It demands patience in an era of immediacy, grace in a culture of punishment. But if feminism is to survive, if it is to be the transformative force we claim it to be, then we must answer that call. We must build a movement that does not simply seek to be right but seeks to be just. That is the work ahead. And that is a feminism worth fighting for.
**Carmen Perez-Jordan** is an internationally recognized civil rights leader, Chicana feminist, and President & CEO of The Gathering for Justice, founded by Harry Belafonte. She cofounded Justice League NYC and CA. As a cofounder and national cochair of the 2017 Women’s March on Washington, which mobilized over 5 million people globally, Carmen was instrumental in fostering partnerships, engaging influencers, and crafting the Unity Principles that guided the march. Additionally, she co-founded Poderistas, a platform amplifying Latina voices. She has spearheaded major campaigns, including _Free Meek Mill_ and _I Am Meg_ in support of Megan Thee Stallion.
Beyond U.S. borders, Carmen played a critical role in the Transnational Advisory Group in Support of the Peace Process in El Salvador. Carmen has been recognized among TIME 100, Fortune’s Top 50 World Leaders, and Forbes México’s _Mujeres Más Poderosas_. Most importantly, she is a devoted mother.
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# A Response
**Loretta J. Ross**
I initially wrote my book _Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You’d Rather Cancel_ as a love letter to the human rights movement while simultaneously calling out the fascists who hijacked the Republican Party. In the editing process with my publisher, Simon & Schuster, I was correctly advised to choose an audience – was I scolding the Right or the Left? And was scolding the appropriate tone for either?
I reworked the book to prioritize the Left, my spiritual and political home, and offer a transparent accounting of my life when I thought calling out was the most powerful tool oppressed people had. I wanted to share lessons learned from my many mistakes. This political biography is for upcoming and experienced activists, not to tell them what to do but to carefully consider the consequences of the choices we make.
Calling in requires conflict competence—learning how to disagree without punishing others. As Paulo Freire warns, the oppressed risk becoming the oppressors if our motivation is individual power or revenge. Of course, in the attention economy, calling out is noticed more, particularly if high-profile people are targeted. But is attention the goal, or justice? Even high-profile people are people with feelings; should we ignore their humanity and the possibility for redemption simply because they are distant to us? Having patience for the fact that people can stumble, instead of seeking immediate gratification by telling them off, is particularly important for people of color, who are never offered a chance to fail forward like mediocre white people.
The reaction from some folks on the Left has been predictably skeptical. Many consider calling out the most powerful tool the “chronically devalued” have, to quote Meredith D. Clark. In my book, I acknowledge that the human rights movement has always called out governments, corporations, and individuals who intentionally cause harm without being held accountable. But I also point out that seasoned activists use this as the tool of last resort, not the first, because calling out forecloses opportunities for constructive dialogue. Calling out is for when you don’t want to be further engaged. Calling in is another way to achieve accountability that also preserves the option for future conversations by avoiding the shaming and blaming that cancelling inevitably produces.
Another of Clark’s critiques, the possibility that liberals and centrists may coopt the calling-in framework to chastise progressives, is the least of my worries. First of all, they already accuse us of overusing grammatical and ideological purity tests, and they are often right. Furthermore, if we fear correctly diagnosing our problems simply because others might exploit our weaknesses, that rather makes my point because our movement risks being dismantled from the inside out.
Calling out and cancelling prioritize punishing others rather than teaching them, and this cannibalistic behavior pushes people away rather than inviting them in. As many educators know, punishment does not make a bad child good, but it can make a good child bad. The same is true for adults. Learning to fear us rather than dialogue with us is not a desirable outcome when we want to build our collective power rather than weaken it.
I agree with Clark that I wish this book had been published several years ago, but the publishing timeline was beyond my control. Perhaps we could have avoided the disastrous outcome of the 2024 presidential election if people opposed to Trump had not prioritized their particular issue over the obvious danger of reelecting a white supremacist fascist. It wasn’t like we didn’t know what he was and what he would do. But I don’t agree that the Left is the wrong audience. Calling in is strategic resistance in action, as Carmen Perez-Jordan points out. Blocking Trump’s desire to repeal the twentieth century while building our strategic power is our best strategy, as Maurice Mitchell‘s analysis shows.
The half the book about the Right ended up on the cutting-room floor, awaiting another opportunity to write about the fascist movement. Culled from the course “White Supremacy in the Age of Trump” that I teach at Smith College, this half was my desperate attempt to explain why it was urgent to educate young people about Trump’s threat to. As a Black feminist and an antifascist researcher, I understand that America is in fact Amerikkka; if it wasn’t, Trump never would have been elected.
At first, I was concerned that I would be loading bullets into the guns of the Right when I critiqued the self-righteousness we eagerly display. Immoral people hungry for power and wealth sneer at what they call our naiveté. I soon dismissed those predictable critics, since they already mock the empathy that drives our human rights movement. They don’t understand why we choose to care about people we don’t know and who don’t know us. Caring for others because of our own integrity seems beyond their understanding.
_Calling In_ asks us to be clear about our motives and not seek to humiliate others simply to prove that we’ve been hurt. Destroying our own movement organizations with political purity tests is strategically self-destructive, particularly when we’re vulnerable to being manipulated by hostile outside forces and social media algorithms. This happened to Perez-Jordan when she was pushed out of the leadership of the 2017 Women’s March by both alleged allies and foreign provocateurs.
Jo Freeman wrote the first significant feminist essay on this pattern in 1976 in her must-read article “Trashing: The Dark Side of Sisterhood.” At the time, I thought her article would help the women’s movement course correct, but in the nearly fifty years since then, social media has worsened the problem as people step over the bodies of their allies to seek power and influence. Turning potential or problematic allies into enemies by calling them out is neither strategic nor representing our human-rights values.
We have to go beyond _quoting_ Audre Lorde and bell hooks and instead _believe_ them when they demand we responsibly temper our radical politics with radical love. Practicing our passion with compassion requires us not to forsake our humanity while using complex empathy to hold accountable those who don’t honor our desires to be heard, to be significant, to live lives that matter.
I knew that writing such a revealing book would be like walking down the street naked and inviting strangers to comment on my body. But not being controlled by our fears is precisely what this political moment requires. Fascism needs us to be divided, cowered, hateful, and vengeful. We have no reason to follow their playbook, to forget the human bonds necessary to save us from their malicious ambitions.
Stephanie M. Ortiz cautions us to prioritize emotional work and labor to identify and challenge exploitation, especially internalized oppression. Emotions are how we are bound to each other and calling in offers us a chance to change the “emotional tones that structure the work that we do.” These are skills we needed to learn as an early age. Instead, as children we often experience fear and shame that traumatized us. So whether we are called in or out, we lack the skills to admit we can make mistakes and not succumb to defensive denial when we are held accountable. She is correct, however, in pointing out that I did not devote a lot of space to emotional theory in my book. Not only am I ill qualified, but emotional intelligence in movement spaces is covered in many other places, most notably Sarah Schulman’s insightful book _Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair_ _._
I chose instead to focus on perspective. One of my dearest mentors, Leonard Zeskind, died April 15, 2025, while I was writing this response and trying to live up to his timeless advice: “Fighting Nazis should be fun. It’s being a Nazi that sucks!” Lenny knew that fighting for human rights requires fierce joy and resolute hope. It’s the belief that we have the power to change ourselves to change the world. While we are mourning, we are also honoring his memory and fierce determination to fight for justice and human dignity for everyone, even those we want to cancel.
_Calling In_ helps us learn how to go forward, to take practical steps towards building the world we desire and deserve. Like every revolution, it starts in tiny places. In the relationships we didn’t think we need. In the conversations we didn’t want to have. In the emotions we didn’t think we could manage. In those places in our heart that are still healing, while we offer respect and grace to others who are also hurting.
Love does conquer hate. That’s just not a slogan but a way of fully living in the world. Call yourself in first and become the resistance that is unstoppable.
**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.
* * * https://signsjournal.org/loretta-rosss-calling-in/
