Among the recent discourse of “cancel culture” and calling out culture, an article surfaced that discussed the drawbacks of this approach, titled "What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In?". The piece speaks to Professor Loretta J. Ross, who believes that the practice of "calling out" people or actions that we deem unacceptable is unhelpful and alienating. Instead, she advocates for an approach that "calls people in" through acting with compassion and understanding, and seeking to educate the person and create "learning opportunities."

Professor Ross has done remarkable work in human rights, spanning and intersecting antiracist and feminist activism and efforts. The article notes that she found herself "teaching antiracism to women whose families were members of the Ku Klux Klan" and "used her own story of sexual assault to facilitate a conversation with incarcerated rapists, teaching them Black feminist theory."

She has had more than 40 years of experience in learning, educating, coming to terms with her own experience and navigating uncomfortable situations. But not everyone is Professor Ross. It takes a significant amount of time and effort to build the argumentative repertoire and emotional bandwidth necessary to have the sort of conversations Ross would like us to have. Oftentimes, the topic at hand is of personal relevance and can involve past trauma, and we may not have the training or resilience to engage. There is privilege in having access to resources for overcoming trauma, educating oneself with theory and literature and being able to make intellectual arguments coexist with emotional responses. Even taking the time to engage in rational discourse with someone in vehement opposition is not something everyone can do. Additionally, these discussions are rarely equal: more often than not, it is the individual who is directly impacted by the topic under discussion who needs to do the work to justify and provide arguments for their own lived experiences. As such, while “calling in” is educational and transformative when it happens, it is not something that can or should be reasonably expected of everyone in all situations.

The difficulties in being compassionate when engaging on challenging issues are made more acute when most of these discussions take place in online spaces. Behind the barriers of the screen, it is easy to detach the names we see from the people they represent. Even without anonymity, there is still an invisibility, a lack of accountability that exists when the person on the other end is not physically in front of you. At the same time, there is a different sort of visibility in having other members of the forum watch your comments. Interactions become more heated; they try to make hard hitting points, prove that one is right and get the most number of reactions. This limits the space available for mutual growth. As a result, engaging in debates on an online forum with an educational approach is an extremely exhausting process.

So when Ross says that "we overuse that word ‘trigger’ when really we mean discomfort," she is dismissive of real, valid responses that people feel as a result of having certain "uncomfortable conversations."

Further, the article seems to treat all issues with the same level of severity; it moves from the example of one student worried that they will be called out for liking Harry Potter, to the expectation that we should tolerate all topics, such as racism and assault, for the sake of having "uncomfortable conversations" and creating a "culture of compassion."

Ross recounts her encounter with the wife of a KKK defector on a street corner in winter. After watching the woman shivering in the cold for a while, Ross decided to share her coat with her, because she "just couldn't maintain [her] anger." Ross positions this anecdote in a way that implies that the whole culture of calling out forgets compassion between people as just people, appealing to some collective humanity that we all have. But this encounter is not comparable to the labor that "calling in" requires. Lending one's coat is much different than spending minutes, days, or years doing the emotional, intellectual and physical work needed to change someone's mind, especially on a topic that pertains to one's own identity or lived experience.

Ross' perspective offers some important suggestions for approaching tense situations. For one, taking a moment to reflect before jumping to impulsive responses is a valuable exercise. It can remind us to assume good will, help us identify if we are overexaggerating the harm done, and not conflate disagreement with violence. Ross also describes that calling out often occurs in conjunction with other fallacies, such as dismissing facts, nuance, or context, ad hominem attacks, or jumping to arguments based on a moral high ground. Finally, she says that calling out or cancelling someone for something they did years ago, that is in complete opposition to their actions now, is fruitless, as is calling out someone for once liking "a piece of pop culture now viewed in a different light.” This is useful in acknowledging that people grow over time, as well as realizing that you can sometimes separate the product from its creator. For instance, referring to a concern raised in the article, it is okay to like Harry Potter because of childhood nostalgia while simultaneously believing that its author is reprehensible now.

With that being said, I believe these are lessons that we can benefit from on a personal level. They are neither a necessary moral code for how to act or behave nor grounds for automatically expecting others around us to act the same way. Regardless of our attempts to practice compassion, there is no way to assess the precise emotional impact a statement can have in the moment, and a response arising from those emotions is still valid. At the end of the day, no one has an obligation to ignore the harm that is done to them for the sake of someone else or to educate them with the resources that one has put personal effort to acquire. So while Ross is incredibly brave in putting herself among people who dismiss her identity and lived experiences, it is hardly something that everyone should do.

Ultimately, Ross reminds us that we "can't be responsible for someone else's inability to grow." While adopting a more compassionate approach towards life is good general advice, sometimes we simply do not have room to call people in.