"Calling In" for the Holidays

The holiday season is a time when we focus on peace, giving, love in action and helping others. It is the joy of sharing, and the spirit of charity that makes the season meaningful beyond what gifts may be waiting for us under a Christmas tree. It is this season that brings about a once-a-year acknowledgement that we human beings are a family across the world, all wishing for a “season of peace on earth, and goodwill to all.”

As unionists we are best when strive to embody these values. We stand together to mutually support each other, and dedicate our solidarity to establish protections for the weakest of us. We endeavor to look past our individual differences and embrace our diversity, pulling together the immense variety of talents and perspectives we give to the world every day. As a union, this makes us strong, builds our community – and when we arrive at the negotiation table and the picket line – we are stronger for it. It also makes us better people.

And yet we are living in a difficult era for sustaining a “season of peace on earth and goodwill to all.”  Our working for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility – a labor of love for working toward fairness — is suffering parody. Charity and civic consciousness are derided as bleeding-hearted and weak. The instinctive need to protect our homes and hearth has been triggered into anxiety and fear. And ironically, the grievances of billionaires are often taken more seriously than those struggling with the basic needs of day-to-day living.

The power of the algorithm in our living much of our lives online has aggravated this by automatically grouping us into marketing demographics, separating us from other, and cultivating an “if you are not with me, you are against me” mindset. This has poisoned many relationships, and fomented division within friends and family, as we find ourselves more and more in righteous disagreement.

Within today’s culture of “calling out” and accusing those with whom we disagree, “calling in” may provide another (additional) way forward. Calling in is a phrase coined by activist Ngọc Loan Trần. It has been recently popularized by lifelong feminist and reproductive rights activist Loretta Ross. In her recently published book, Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You’d Rather Cancel, she tells her stories of having helped to deprogram white supremacists and having taught convicted rapists the principles of feminism. As a victim of rape and incest, racism and misogyny, she found that it was possible to make allies of those she could have easily gone on righteously hating, and feeling perfectly justified to do so.

As she explains it, “a call in is basically a call out done… with love,” where we invite people in, rather than push them out. As Ross explains, with the name calling and accusation that can accompany calling out, we are inviting them to a fight. We risk making enemies when we could be creating allies.

With calling in, we resist the impulse to shame and punish people – and instead – invite them into a conversation. As union organizers, this is basic to building consensus and solidarity: listening more than talking, keeping an open mind, practicing empathy, finding common ground (hard work!). While calling in is not meant to replace calling out – giving abusers a free pass – it can provide a tool to employ in those conversations, making us better organizers and better people.

Perhaps this holiday season we should consider calling in someone from whom we have been alienated, someone we miss. Just as we work to create a more perfect musicians union, we can also work to make a more perfect world, and heal some of the breakage from our divisive age.

A Holiday Wish to share:

To develop a calling in culture to build a defense against fomenting division. To strengthen our bonds by learning about each other, forgiving each other when we make mistakes, and not forgetting that we have more in common than otherwise. To work to heal breaks within our friends and family. To learn to better handle the difficulties, challenges and frailty of democracy itself.

And to develop new ways to celebrate our beauty through our diversity, embrace our differences which unlock our power, and realize our true potential for making a better world.

Also see:

Loretta J. Ross website: https://lorettajross.com/