Activist Loretta Ross Opens “Viewpoint Exchange” with Message on Making Good Calls for Human Rights

Her visit marked the kickoff of this year's Viewpoint Exchange, a Bowdoin program launched last year to bring diverse voices to campus and foster open dialogue. The program is part of President Safa Zaki's "Working Together" initiative, which aims to build and sustain a Bowdoin community grounded in authentic dialogue, constructive engagement, respect for different experiences, and a spirit of generosity and humility.

Answering questions from Bianca Williams, Bowdoin's Matthew D. Branche Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Anthropology, Ross reflected on her five decades of human rights work, offering lessons on how we might heal our fractured country.

Ross is a pioneer of the "calling in" movement-a response to the shaming and humiliation that define much of today's "calling out" culture, when people condemn others for having objectionable or offensive views. Calling in, she said, is as essential to today's human rights struggles as nonviolence was to the civil rights movement.

The idea took root a decade ago when Ross's grandson introduced her to Facebook. Seeing the ways people attacked one another online, she realized young people were learning "radical politics" without also learning "radical love practices to use those politics responsibly."

Her recent book, Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You'd Rather Cancel, explains how we can adopt this approach. Unlike her earlier works that focused on issues, it considers how activists and organizers actually do the work of solving issues, and how they sustain movements by collaborating with people they would prefer to avoid.