Calling In: How to Deal with People Who Just Don’t Get It

Autographed copy! Loretta Ross, one of the mothers of the reproductive justice movement and a leading voice in it for five decades, has deprogrammed white supremacists and taught convicted rapists the principles of feminism. In Calling In, the Black feminist and MacArthur “Genius” Fellow offers a way through cancel culture: rather than calling people out, call them in. Invite them into conversation instead of conflict. Hold them accountable, but do so with love.

The philosophy took shape in 1979. Ross, a single mother who’d had to drop out of Howard University, was working at Washington, DC’s Rape Crisis Center when a letter arrived from a man in prison who wanted to learn how to stop being a rapist. As a survivor of sexual violence, her first instinct was fury. Instead, she rejected the response her trauma was pushing her toward, and began developing the approach that would guide the rest of her life’s work.

Part handbook, part manifesto, part memoir, Calling In draws on stories from Ross’s activism to show why calling in, focusing on shared values over punishment, is the more strategic path to real change: in the workplace, on a college campus, or at your own kitchen table. Courageous and blisteringly honest, it’s a practical guide anyone can use to turn divisive conflict into real connection.