skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

MA College Course Explores Holding People Accountable with Respect

play audio
Play

Friday, September 17, 2021   

By Sonali Kolhatkar for Yes! Media.
Broadcast version by Lily Bohlke for Commonwealth News Service reporting for the YES! Media-Public News Service Collaboration


Longtime activist and academic Loretta J. Ross is on a mission to "build a culture that invites people in, instead of pushing them out." As she explains in a TED talk she gave earlier this year, she does this by teaching a course she's named, "Calling In the Calling Out Culture in the Age of Trump."

Ross has a long history of social-justice activism that includes fighting against the Ku Klux Klan in the 1990s, co-founding the reproductive justice group SisterSong, writing three books on reproductive rights, and most recently, teaching at Smith College as a visiting associate professor.

In a 2019 op-ed titled, "I'm a Black Feminist. I Think Call-Out Culture Is Toxic," Ross began by admitting, "Today's call-out culture is so seductive, I often have to resist the overwhelming temptation to clap back at people on social media who get on my nerves."

Ross's op-ed was published in the midst of a raging debate over the manner in which public figures are held accountable-usually via social media-for offensive comments or positions. Conservatives in particular complained that "cancel culture" is antithetical to free speech.

The notion that cancel culture is dangerous has gained so much traction in mainstream discourse that the Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan denounced it as "a Leftist Offensive." British actor John Cleese recently announced a documentary series called "Cancel Me," based on interviews with people who have been "canceled." And a new Netflix series starring Sandra Oh called "The Chair" examines the pitfalls of a student-led cancellation of a white professor who casually used a Nazi salute in a classroom to illustrate fascism.

The current conservative fixation on cancel culture is part of an ongoing decades-long right-wing push back against "political correctness." During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump said in 2015 that "the big problem this country has is being politically correct." Trump's followers have gone on to rail against political correctness and cancel culture as an assertion of their right to free speech.

Pew Research Center's latest poll on the issue of cancel culture highlighted a partisan split on the issue with conservatives tending to see it as punishment and liberals generally viewing it as a means of accountability. "Calling out," or cancel culture, has been around for millennia. "The original cancellation was Alexander Hamilton getting killed in a duel," Ross said in an interview about her course.

She asserted, "The right cynically uses the concept of being canceled in a very hypocritical way, because they're the originators of the cancel culture." But, according to Ross, "the problem that they have with it now is that the people who were formerly powerless can punch back."

Ross sees power dynamics between the perpetrators and targets of cancel culture as a crucial part of the equation. Those power dynamics determine whether or not targeting people for offensive behavior or language amounts to a just take-down or dangerous mob mentality. Stand-up comedians like Dick Gregory, George Carlin and Chris Rock, who have been unafraid to engage in mockery, have known the difference between "punching up" toward power, versus "punching down" against the powerless.

Unlike the conservative argument against cancel culture that sees any infringement of the right to offend as an attack on free speech, Ross is more concerned about the tendency among some on the left to alienate one another rather than work together for justice. She worries that "cancel culture is toxic when the left overuses it and chooses it as the tool of first resort."

She also worries about the related practice of using "trigger warnings" to alert people about material that might be traumatizing. "I can't tell people what their traumas and triggers are, as I don't have their lived experiences," said Ross, who is a survivor of rape and incest. She addeds, "We can't go around punishing people in the present for the trauma that was inflicted on us in the past."

The practice of calling out people within social-justice movements predates contemporary social media-based public shaming. In white-dominated spaces in particular, people of color have often called out their ostensible allies for actions or words that feel dehumanizing. Sometimes this can lead to fractured movements and infighting between people who have a common goal. "In our pursuit of political purity, we're alienating a lot of our allies, and we're criticizing them for not being 'woke' enough," said Ross.

To help teach her course, Ross recruited movement organizer Loan Tran, who became known for writing "Calling In: A Less Disposable Way of Holding Each Other Accountable", which went viral in 2013. Tran's article ignited a critical conversation about handling internal conflict within social justice spaces.

Rather than calling out people for their offenses, Ross said, "I prefer 'calling in' which is achieving accountability with grace, love and respect as opposed to anger, shame and humiliation." She maintained that, "the human rights movement is not a public therapy space. Its job is to end oppression." Indeed, organizations and institutions are now offering guidance on internal accountability using calling in techniques.

Ross also teaches a six-week online course that mirrors the college-level course she teaches at Smith College but costs a fraction of the amount-part of an effort to make it as widely accessible as possible. Her goal, as per the class description, is "building solidarity to take on white supremacy across different experiences in race, class, and gender."

Any friction within social-justice movements-whether for women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ communities, or immigrants-stands in the way of a unified response to the myriad injustices we face. Ross sees the creation of a calling in culture as critical to the work of building an effective human rights movement, "so that we don't do work against racism in a homophobic way," for example.

In addition to delving into ancient philosophies of conflict resolution such as Confucianism and Ubuntu, Ross' course explores the idea of "democratic speech environments" on college campuses, which were first envisioned by two scholars at Hampshire College. Christopher M. Tinson, associate professor of Africana Studies and History, and Javiera Benavente, program director of the Ethics and the Common Good Project, wrote an article explaining DSEs as "sites of justice-seeking conversation and discourse," which they hope "could be instrumental in shaping healthy, and vital, rather than toxic and indifferent, campus climates."

The course gives students the chance to practice the skills they learn in what Ross calls "Calling In Learning Labs." So far, the six-week course has been so successful that it's in its sixth session within just one year.

Ross also offered specific techniques for calling in allies. As an illustration of how people who have a common goal of social justice can talk to one another when someone makes an offensive statement, Ross suggested asking questions like, "Can we practice when we're together, you not saying those kinds of things?"

In using such an approach, she said, "you lead with love instead of anger."

----

This story was produced with original reporting from Sonali Kolhatkar for YES! Media.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
A report from the Tennessee HealthCare Campaign recommended the federal government needs to strengthen 340B drug pricing and other federal negotiation mechanisms to make needed medicines more readily available and less expensive for hospitals to purchase and administer. (Spotmatikphoto/AdobeStock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

A recent report examined how some rural Tennessee hospitals have managed to stay afloat despite financial challenges. The report includes interviews …


Social Issues

play sound

Earlier this month, a new Arizona Public Service rate hike went into effect and one senior advocacy group said those on a fixed income may struggle …

Social Issues

play sound

Michigan recently implemented a significant juvenile justice reform package following recommendations from a task force made up of prosecutors…


Nearly 13 million Americans receive health coverage through unique plans under both Medicare and Medicaid. They are known as Dual-Eligible Special Needs Plans. (Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Medicare and Medicaid are key sources of health coverage for many Americans and some people qualify for assistance under both programs. With lagging …

Social Issues

play sound

A mix of policy updates and staffing boosts has helped to put wage theft enforcement on the radar in Minnesota, and officials leading the efforts are …

More than six in 10 Americans favor keeping the abortion pill mifepristone available in the U.S. as a prescription drug, while over a third are opposed, according to a Gallup poll. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

New research shows more than six in 10 abortions in the U.S. last year were medically induced, and U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto - D-NV - is …

Social Issues

play sound

Colorado is working to boost the state's agricultural communities by getting more fresh, nutritious foods into school cafeterias - and a new online …

Social Issues

play sound

Missouri lawmakers are concerned with protecting people from the potential risks of the increasing accessibility of AI-generated images and videos…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021