Pulling The Thread with Elise Loehnen

“Do you want to continue to live out the patterns of your childhood? Or do you want to make different choices? Are you programmed or are you self-determining?” So says Loretta Ross, Professor at Smith College in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender, a founder of reproductive justice theory, and an expert on feminism, racism, and human rights. Loretta has co-written three books on reproductive justice and is the author of the forthcoming book, Calling In the Calling Out Culture. Loretta has been a leader in the human rights movement for decades—she worked with Reverend C.T. Vivian, one of Martin Luther King’s right hands, to rehabilitate former members of hate groups. As a rape and incest survivor herself, she taught Black feminism to incarcerated rapists. She has learned, throughout her career, to lift the hood on peoples’ lived experiences—the identity they project to the world—and determine, through courageous conversation, where their humanity lies, and where their values overlap. She believes with a certain fierceness that we have far more in common with each other—across the entire political spectrum—than not. In recent years, she has become a vocal opponent of cancel culture—ironically, people have attempted to cancel her for this—because, as she explains, she’s interested in being part of a movement and not a cult. She believes that political purity and the policing of other allies is...the opposite of helpful. And that in the process of building coalitions for sweeping social change and evolution, we alienate and lose people who would otherwise want the very same things as us.

Today, she gives us a crash course in the practice of calling in - an alternative to calling out, or publicly shaming those whose behavior or beliefs we deem unacceptable. In a culture devoid of empathy and grace, Ross implores us to offer people a chance to change, to give them the opportunity to be as good on the outside as they think they are on the inside. For Ross, recognizing that how we do the work is just as important as the work we do, gives us the incredible opportunity to bring more people in, building the power base of the social justice movement. When we choose to use calling in practices, she says, we choose them because of who we are, not because of who the other person is, and when we affirm the humanity of others, we affirm our own humanity in turn. 

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

• Identifying your circles of influence…(8:31)
• The Uncle Frank strategy…(21:14) 
• Programming vs. self-determining…(27:29)
• Guidelines for the creation of a calling-in environment…(42:15)

MORE FROM LORETTA ROSS

Loretta Ross’ Website

Preorder her book, Calling in the Calling Out Culture, by joining her mailing list

Take the online course: Calling In the Calling Out Culture in the Age of Trump

Follow Loretta on Twitter 

READ HER WORK

Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice

Reproductive Justice: an Introduction

Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundations, Theory, Practice, Critique

Reproductive Justice as Intersectional Feminist Activism

DIG DEEPER

I’m a Black Feminist. I Think Call-Out Culture Is Toxic. - Loretta Ross, NYT Op-Ed, August 2019

Speaking Up Without Tearing Down - Loretta Ross, Spring 2019

What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In? - Jessica Bennett, NY Times, November 2020

Up From Hatred - Michael D'Antonio, LA Times, August 1997

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“Humanity is messy, each of us starts with ourselves, it's horribly messy and then multiply that times millions. And that's an incredible, lovely mess.” So says Joy Harjo, the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, and the first Native American to hold that post. She is the author of nine books of poetry, several plays, and childrens books, and two memoirs—and is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee nation, with an innumerable number of prizes and fellowships at her back. Today, we sit down to discuss her second memoir, POET WARRIOR, which just came out. It is beautiful—not only the story of her life, but a vehicle for deep wisdom about language, metaphor, and ritual. We—as individuals, as communities, as nations, and as humankind—exist in a collective story field, Harjo tells us. Everyone’s story must have a place, a thread within the larger tapestry—and our story field must constantly shift to include even the most difficult stories, the ones we want to forget and repress. But, as she remarks, the hard stories provide the building blocks for our house of knowledge—we cannot evolve without them.

To move forward, we must find ourselves in the messy story of humanity, assume our place as part of the earth in this time and in these challenges. For Harjo, it is when we turn to song, poetry, and the arts that we are able to re-root ourselves in the voice of inner truth, a knowing that has access to stories past, present, and future. And it is this wisdom of eternal knowledge that will help guide us forward—if we only stop to listen. 

Joy is also the winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the PEN USA Literary Award for Nonfiction, the Jackson Prize from the Poetry Society of America, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. Harjo is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Rasmuson United States Artist Fellowship. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Board of Directors Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and holds a Tulsa Artist Fellowship. In 2014 she was inducted into the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame. 

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

• Finding ourselves in the messy story of humanity…(6:33)
• Returning to rituals of becoming…(36:14) 
• The story of mothers…(42:59)

MORE FROM JOY HARJO

Joy Harjo's Website

Poet Warrior: A Memoir

More Books by Joy Harjo

Upcoming Live Events

Follow Joy on Twitter and on Instagram

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45-minute conversations and investigations with today's leading thinkers, authors, experts, doctors, healers, scientists about life's biggest questions: Why do we do what we do? How can we come to know and love ourselves better? How can we come together to heal and build a better world?

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