(00:00:05):
I've learned that there is one constant.

(00:00:07):
At nearly every event, there is a Ron or a Rhonda.

(00:00:12):
Ron is the person who will raise his hand at the first call for questions or race

(00:00:16):
up to the Q&A mic.

(00:00:17):
He is in the audience, but you get the feeling he would rather be on stage.

(00:00:22):
Ron has decided,

(00:00:23):
either consciously or unconsciously,

(00:00:25):
to see if the workshop should be about him.

(00:00:28):
Ron is often male, but not always.

(00:00:31):
Often white, but not always.

(00:00:33):
He may as well be there to test you.

(00:00:35):
to tempt you.

(00:00:38):
One night,

(00:00:38):
Ron may have prepared a monologue with no question in sight about a recent

(00:00:42):
conversation he had with a second cousin about the American Toad,

(00:00:46):
which he thinks the whole audience will find interesting.

(00:00:49):
Another evening, Ron leads with a joke about woke culture.

(00:00:52):
But don't get mad, it's just a joke.

(00:00:55):
And he does have a question.

(00:00:57):
What about him?

(00:00:58):
He grew up poor and white.

(00:01:00):
Does he really have white privilege?

(00:01:02):
On a different day,

(00:01:03):
Ron might chime in to inform an auditorium of people that we don't say auditorium

(00:01:08):
anymore because it is ableist.

(00:01:10):
Ron has determined it's problematic.

(00:01:13):
He has made a habit of manufacturing offense.

(00:01:16):
Ron is the person you want to call out badly.

(00:01:19):
He is minor conflict and distraction embodied.

(00:01:23):
He is just asking questions,

(00:01:24):
countering every point with what about so-and-so,

(00:01:27):
invoking the oppression Olympics and playing it all off as just a joke.

(00:01:32):
Ron exists in person and online.

(00:01:34):
He can find you at the workplace water cooler,

(00:01:36):
plop down across from you at Thanksgiving dinner,

(00:01:39):
or materialize in your DMs.

(00:01:41):
Sometimes he is a troll goading you to snap at him.

(00:01:45):
More often,

(00:01:45):
he's some combination of confused and overconfident,

(00:01:49):
insecure and misinformed,

(00:01:51):
genuinely curious and well-meaning.

(00:01:54):
As neuropsychology professor Robert Hanlon said,

(00:01:57):
never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

(00:02:01):
But one thing's for sure, Ron's comments are well off the mark.

(00:02:06):
Hi, I'm Zahn Valines, and this is the Liberating Motherhood podcast.

(00:02:11):
Today,

(00:02:11):
we are going to be talking about building movement solidarity,

(00:02:15):
calling out versus calling in,

(00:02:18):
and how we can build consensus across distance.

(00:02:21):
I am so excited to be here today with my incredible guest,

(00:02:24):
Loretta J.

(00:02:25):
Ross,

(00:02:26):
who is the author of the vignette I just read.

(00:02:29):
Loretta J. Ross is an activist, professor, and public intellectual.

(00:02:33):
In her five decades in the human rights movement,

(00:02:36):
she's deprogrammed white supremacist,

(00:02:38):
taught convicted rapists the principles of feminism,

(00:02:41):
and as national co-director,

(00:02:43):
organized the second largest march on Washington.

(00:02:46):
In April 25,

(00:02:47):
2004,

(00:02:47):
March for Women's Lives in Washington,

(00:02:50):
DC,

(00:02:51):
surpassed in size only by the 2017 Women's March.

(00:02:55):
A co-founder of the National Center for Human Rights Education and the Sister Song

(00:02:59):
Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective,

(00:03:02):
her many accolades and honors include a 2022 MacArthur Fellowship and a 2024

(00:03:07):
induction into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

(00:03:10):
Today,

(00:03:11):
Ross is an associate professor at Smith College in Northampton,

(00:03:14):
Massachusetts,

(00:03:16):
and is the founder of La Rasta Consulting,

(00:03:19):
with which she runs calling in training sessions online and for organizations

(00:03:23):
around the country.

(00:03:25):
She has coauthored many books about reproductive justice.

(00:03:28):
She is also the author of calling in how to start making change with those you'd

(00:03:32):
rather cancel,

(00:03:33):
which is the book we will be discussing today.

(00:03:36):
Loretta is a rape survivor forced to raise a child born of incest and also a

(00:03:40):
survivor of sterilization abuse at age 23.

(00:03:44):
She is a model of how to survive and thrive despite the traumas that

(00:03:47):
disproportionately affect low income women of color.

(00:03:50):
Loretta is a mother, grandmother and great grandmother.

(00:03:54):
Hi, Loretta.

(00:03:55):
Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

(00:03:57):
And thanks for having me on your show.

(00:04:00):
I'm so excited to have you here.

(00:04:02):
I told listeners that you would be coming on and I was inundated with questions for you.

(00:04:07):
So we're just so grateful to have you here and to benefit from your wisdom.

(00:04:11):
Oh, you're so kind.

(00:04:13):
Let's get started.

(00:04:15):
All right.

(00:04:16):
So let's just get started with what is toxic call-out culture and what does it mean

(00:04:22):
to call someone in as an alternative?

(00:04:25):
Toxic call-out culture is when you want to hold somebody accountable for harm that

(00:04:31):
you think they've done,

(00:04:34):
and you choose a strategy of shaming and blaming them.

(00:04:39):
Usually publicly,

(00:04:40):
because that's one of the things that contributes to making it toxic,

(00:04:44):
because you're virtue signaling how woke you are.

(00:04:48):
But really, it's so punitive.

(00:04:56):
to make somebody feel bad about who they are or what they said or what they believe.

(00:05:03):
And it doesn't really offer any opportunity for the person to grow or change.

(00:05:09):
And it really calls into question whether you wanted the person to grow and change

(00:05:14):
or did you just want to perform how you could make somebody feel insignificant and

(00:05:22):
small for what you perceive as a mistake.

(00:05:28):
That's such a good way of putting it.

(00:05:30):
So one of the things that you and I were talking about a little bit before we

(00:05:33):
started recording is how people have responded to your book and how some people

(00:05:40):
perceive it as just like a manual for being nice to people who are doing harm.

(00:05:45):
I wonder if you would address that just a little bit because I do think that that's

(00:05:49):
a way that people get defensive about the idea that they have to change their

(00:05:53):
behavior.

(00:05:53):
I'm not surprised that people think

(00:06:00):
It's a book about being nice and civil to people.

(00:06:04):
That is a superficial interpretation of what I hope is a deeper message.

(00:06:10):
Because if you really want a person to be held accountable for their harm,

(00:06:16):
you have to let go of some assumptions that you make.

(00:06:20):
First, did they actually intend to harm you?

(00:06:25):
Do they even know that they harmed you?

(00:06:28):
Is it something you noticed, but they didn't?

(00:06:32):
Do you assume that they can't make a change or don't want to change?

(00:06:37):
But you won't know until you give them an opportunity to change.

(00:06:43):
And so that trio of assumptions leads to nursing those hurt feelings very close to your heart.

(00:06:52):
and then lashing out at the person you say caused you to feel those hurt feelings.

(00:07:00):
And I call it wrapping that mantle of victimhood so concretely around yourself that

(00:07:07):
nothing else penetrates.

(00:07:09):
And then you outsource responsibility for fixing it to the other person.

(00:07:16):
And that rarely works.

(00:07:19):
So it is the most self-defeating strategy of accountability that I can imagine.

(00:07:26):
Yeah, it really is.

(00:07:29):
So something that I've been working on recently in my own work is

(00:07:34):
is every year I get the same question from people who read my writing and it is,

(00:07:41):
what are some good New Year's resolutions for activists and feminists?

(00:07:44):
And I always just sort of laugh because something about that's very funny to me.

(00:07:49):
But this year I decided

(00:07:51):
that okay i'm going to take seriously this idea of like how can we be better

(00:07:56):
activists in the new year so i put together this series that was encouraging people

(00:08:02):
to reflect on their own role in supremacy culture and and how that they how they

(00:08:07):
could shift that and you know it's these are just my ideas i'm not the expert on

(00:08:13):
how to be a better person or anything um

(00:08:15):
But what I found really interesting is that every time I would send out one of

(00:08:19):
these reflections encouraging people to think about things like,

(00:08:22):
you know,

(00:08:22):
what are my biases or where are the areas where I have trauma that makes me mean?

(00:08:27):
The responses that people would give me were always about what they had seen other

(00:08:33):
people do wrong.

(00:08:34):
It was very rare for a person to actually look at themselves and say, well, you know, I tend to

(00:08:40):
get toxic in this situation.

(00:08:42):
And it's just really shown me how hard it is for people to look at themselves and

(00:08:48):
say,

(00:08:49):
here's what I'm doing wrong.

(00:08:51):
And I feel like that relates to this toxic call-out culture in some way.

(00:08:56):
What do you think about that?

(00:08:58):
Well,

(00:08:58):
I find that our patterns for how we make mistakes,

(00:09:02):
how we handle mistakes,

(00:09:05):
is often etched into our childhood.

(00:09:09):
Because when you were a child and if you made a mistake and if you were punished

(00:09:14):
and humiliated for making that mistake,

(00:09:16):
that hurt a lot.

(00:09:18):
And you weren't taught self-forgiveness.

(00:09:22):
Instead,

(00:09:22):
you were shamed and blamed and weren't even taught what lesson you could learn from

(00:09:28):
that mistake.

(00:09:30):
On the other hand, if you were assured of being loved despite making that mistake,

(00:09:38):
and shown that you could do better,

(00:09:40):
you learn self-forgiveness and you also learn that mistakes aren't fatal.

(00:09:49):
And so as adults,

(00:09:51):
we have the option of deciding whether we're gonna continue those toxic patterns of

(00:09:57):
our childhood of lacking self-forgiveness,

(00:10:02):
making us unable to forgive others

(00:10:06):
punishing and humiliating others so that we live out that truism that hurt people hurt people?

(00:10:14):
Or are we going to make a different choice and decide that we can call ourselves

(00:10:20):
in,

(00:10:21):
we can forgive ourselves for not being perfect,

(00:10:24):
and we can stop walking around with the expectation that we can only be in right

(00:10:29):
relationships with people who are perfect?

(00:10:35):
That perfectionism,

(00:10:36):
the idea,

(00:10:37):
it's not even,

(00:10:38):
I mean,

(00:10:39):
it is that people have to be perfect,

(00:10:40):
but it's also that they have to agree with us about everything.

(00:10:44):
I mean, I find myself falling into this all the time.

(00:10:47):
It's very hard not to fall into it.

(00:10:50):
I'm wondering if you would give a few examples or even just one example of how we

(00:10:57):
can work across disagreements,

(00:10:59):
how we can work across

(00:11:01):
imperfections or even extreme disagreements?

(00:11:03):
Because you have a lot of them in the book and they've really helped me think

(00:11:06):
through what it really means to build like meaningful solidarity.

(00:11:13):
Well, one answer has caused me to deeply think about what we mean by diversity.

(00:11:21):
Of course, there's racial, class, gender, citizenship, ability, gender identity, diversities.

(00:11:30):
But I think the diversity that we should pay more attention to is experiential diversity.

(00:11:38):
Because every human being has been through something different in life.

(00:11:44):
And those differences cause them to think differently about a lot of things.

(00:11:51):
And it is our inability to accept that other people have life patterns and life

(00:11:58):
experiences that aren't yours.

(00:12:00):
that make us have unrealistic expectations of how much people should agree with us,

(00:12:09):
how much we're right and they're wrong,

(00:12:12):
how we really have not given ourselves a chance to grow,

(00:12:17):
to appreciate the incredible and wonderful diversity of the human experience and

(00:12:24):
grow our stamina,

(00:12:26):
resilience and capacity

(00:12:29):
to take all of that wonderful diversity in and then appreciate that every human

(00:12:36):
being generally is a combination of good stuff and bad stuff and you're a

(00:12:41):
combination of good stuff and bad stuff.

(00:12:44):
And I like to think of calling in as focusing on bringing out more of the good in

(00:12:52):
people versus focusing on what's bad about them.

(00:12:57):
I think

(00:12:59):
Adrienne Marie Brown says it so beautifully, what you pay attention to grows.

(00:13:05):
And if you pay attention to the good people are capable of, that's what's going to grow.

(00:13:12):
But if you pay attention only to what they're doing wrong,

(00:13:18):
that's probably what's going to grow too.

(00:13:22):
And so I like to think that we can grow

(00:13:26):
develop what I call the four intelligences more,

(00:13:30):
you know,

(00:13:30):
our capacity for emotional intelligence and understanding how we react to

(00:13:38):
situations and what our emotions are,

(00:13:41):
our understanding of cultural intelligence,

(00:13:44):
that what we've been through in the life we've lived is not the center of the

(00:13:49):
universe.

(00:13:50):
Other people have come from other cultures and other experiences.

(00:13:55):
that are just as valuable as yours.

(00:13:58):
And relational intelligence is learning to right-size your expectations of each

(00:14:04):
other so that you don't walk around constantly disappointing yourself by having

(00:14:11):
unrealistic expectations of the people in your life or that you encounter.

(00:14:16):
But I think the fourth intelligence is the one my book most focuses on,

(00:14:21):
and that's integrity intelligence.

(00:14:25):
Constantly striving to make decisions that you can be proud of that reflect who you

(00:14:32):
are really inside versus the patterns that life and society kind of box you into.

(00:14:40):
And I always want to be able to make decisions that I can look in the eye without shame.

(00:14:48):
Not take advantage of the cashier giving me too much change back.

(00:14:52):
but choosing every time to do the right thing because of who I am,

(00:14:59):
not because of who that cashier is.

(00:15:02):
I want to always increase my integrity intelligence.

(00:15:08):
I love this idea of integrity intelligence.

(00:15:10):
And I have kind of an maybe on point story to tell you about that.

(00:15:15):
So a few weeks ago, I took my kids to the bookstore.

(00:15:19):
And, you know, we love going to the bookstore.

(00:15:21):
And we usually have really good conversations with the people working there.

(00:15:26):
And I, you know, I'm really trying to teach them to be respectful to everybody they encounter.

(00:15:31):
And I

(00:15:32):
we got up to the counter to check out.

(00:15:35):
And the woman who was working at the counter was just being so rude,

(00:15:39):
not just to me,

(00:15:40):
but also to my kids.

(00:15:41):
And I,

(00:15:42):
you know,

(00:15:43):
at first I tried to be nice and it just like,

(00:15:45):
it wasn't working and I could feel that frustration bubbling up in me.

(00:15:51):
And so I bent down to get something from my daughter and my daughter pulled me down

(00:15:55):
and she whispered into my ear,

(00:15:57):
mommy,

(00:15:58):
you know,

(00:15:58):
she has dreams too.

(00:15:59):
And it was,

(00:16:02):
Just like for an eight-year-old, such a profound way to observe her humanity.

(00:16:07):
And I just,

(00:16:10):
I feel like that's something that is often missing when we have disagreements is

(00:16:14):
that childlike ability to see like,

(00:16:17):
oh,

(00:16:17):
they have dreams too.

(00:16:18):
They have a life as big as mine, even if I don't like them.

(00:16:25):
That's often an observation we fail to make about others.

(00:16:30):
when we encounter them for that brief moment,

(00:16:32):
we're only getting a snapshot of what's really going on in their lives.

(00:16:36):
And so when I encounter a difficult person,

(00:16:39):
I'm not going to assume that that's the only way they know how to show up or that

(00:16:45):
that is something they're doing particularly to me.

(00:16:49):
I tend to stop and give them the benefit of the doubt because we've all had bad days.

(00:16:56):
We've all had people who are

(00:17:00):
so unhappy they just spread unhappiness like a miasma around them.

(00:17:06):
Or you just don't know what's going on.

(00:17:10):
If I care enough and I have the time, I'll stop and ask a question.

(00:17:16):
Something like, oh, it looks like you're not having the best of days.

(00:17:22):
Do you have time to tell me a little more?

(00:17:23):
Well, what's going on with you?

(00:17:25):
Because I can feel your pain right now.

(00:17:30):
I'd like to know more about it so that we can talk a minute.

(00:17:36):
That's a disarming question.

(00:17:40):
And very few people resist the invitation when you say,

(00:17:45):
can you just tell me more about what's going on with you?

(00:17:50):
And that changes the whole toxic atmosphere almost immediately.

(00:17:56):
That really does.

(00:17:58):
I'm going to write that one down and try it and may report back to you.

(00:18:03):
So when we're doing movement work,

(00:18:05):
particularly when we're working in groups in like nonprofit settings or direct

(00:18:09):
action settings or that sort of thing,

(00:18:12):
I think we've all had the experience of

(00:18:15):
feeling like the group is getting swept up in this like toxic call-out culture.

(00:18:21):
And sometimes you can recognize it and you can feel like this isn't right.

(00:18:25):
Sometimes you're the one leading it.

(00:18:29):
But when it's the former and you can feel your group just bubbling toward this sort

(00:18:34):
of like vengeance-seeking mean-spiritedness that does not work toward building

(00:18:39):
coalitions,

(00:18:41):
what can you do to kind of slow that down?

(00:18:44):
Have you...

(00:18:45):
found ways to,

(00:18:48):
when your own group is behaving that way,

(00:18:49):
not just yourself,

(00:18:51):
but get others to kind of pause and reflect.

(00:18:56):
In my book, I wrote about advanced accountability and advanced understanding.

(00:19:02):
If it's a group that I'm involved with over a long term,

(00:19:06):
I try to help us have conversations about advanced understanding because

(00:19:14):
Most of the people who are drawn to human rights work have experienced some form of

(00:19:20):
trauma that draws them to the movement.

(00:19:24):
And so we have to stop being surprised when that trauma shows up in our

(00:19:28):
organizations and our work.

(00:19:31):
And so that's the difference between being trauma-driven and trauma-informed.

(00:19:37):
And so with advanced understanding, we pull out

(00:19:43):
how that trauma is around us.

(00:19:45):
We're not individualizing it and accusing people of being toxic or performative or

(00:19:49):
any of those kind of things.

(00:19:51):
We're just saying, this is what we're dealing with.

(00:19:54):
Let's look at this scientifically,

(00:19:56):
logically,

(00:19:57):
dispassionately,

(00:19:59):
so that we are not surprised when it shows up and we have a strategy in advance for

(00:20:05):
when it does.

(00:20:06):
Now, sometimes, even with all of that, the group agreements and all the conversations

(00:20:12):
you have in preparation of encountering the trauma is still going to show up.

(00:20:17):
So that's what advanced accountability looks like.

(00:20:20):
Okay,

(00:20:21):
if this person insists on dominating the conversation with their trauma and

(00:20:29):
derailing our group or our discussion,

(00:20:33):
what are we going to do to help that person remain part of the group but not have

(00:20:39):
such a traumatic impact on the group?

(00:20:43):
And those are things and suggestions that I make in my book.

(00:20:48):
But sometimes you just come in after the S has already hit the fan.

(00:20:55):
And so that's what advanced accountability is.

(00:20:58):
It allows you to not overreact,

(00:21:02):
not assume that what the person is giving off is yours to take in,

(00:21:08):
but that's

(00:21:10):
where they are and who they are in that moment,

(00:21:14):
and that you are going to hold back your own trauma response so that you can build

(00:21:21):
a container that holds everybody in love and respect,

(00:21:27):
even if you don't feel like it at the time.

(00:21:30):
I think it's like riding a bicycle.

(00:21:32):
When you first try it, you're not going to be good at it.

(00:21:34):
You're going to fall off a couple of times.

(00:21:37):
But if you keep it as your North Star, this is the person I want to show up and be.

(00:21:43):
With practice,

(00:21:44):
you become better at it and you stop overreacting to displays of trauma and you

(00:21:51):
anticipate it and plan for it and still enfold the people who manifest it because

(00:22:00):
everybody's hurt hurts.

(00:22:03):
And so you don't want to dismiss the pain.

(00:22:06):
You just don't want to make that that pain derail people being effective together.

(00:22:15):
So one of the things that I really love about your book is that you don't just talk

(00:22:20):
in broad aspirational principles about we need to call in or,

(00:22:25):
you know,

(00:22:25):
we need to show respect or we need to show love and all of that.

(00:22:29):
You tell us how to do it, Colin.

(00:22:32):
You give us some principles and some examples of how to do it.

(00:22:35):
Can you talk about your principles for an effective call-in?

(00:22:41):
Well,

(00:22:41):
if you notice in my book,

(00:22:43):
I try to write about every mistake that I made from which I had something to learn.

(00:22:52):
So it's not a book about my successes.

(00:22:54):
It's actually a book about many of my mistakes.

(00:22:58):
which made it feel very vulnerable to write and publish.

(00:23:02):
But what I've learned is that when my trauma is triggered,

(00:23:10):
I tend to blurt out whatever's on top for me in that moment.

(00:23:15):
And quite often, I regret that thing that comes out.

(00:23:20):
I'm not proud of it.

(00:23:21):
I am so quick to go nuclear when my trauma is stimulated.

(00:23:28):
And so I've learned that the first step is to put myself on pause because that

(00:23:35):
first response is going to be my traumatic response.

(00:23:39):
And my second response is going to be my intelligence and integrity response.

(00:23:45):
And by the way, it sounds deep and all of that, but if you've ever parented a child,

(00:23:50):
You do it automatically.

(00:23:53):
Because if you played out the first thing that occurs to you when your child is

(00:23:57):
being difficult or stupid,

(00:23:59):
they'll be in therapy for life.

(00:24:03):
You know,

(00:24:03):
so we know to put ourselves on pause,

(00:24:06):
count a few moments and think about what response we want to give to that child.

(00:24:13):
And so that's the importance of that pause.

(00:24:16):
And you use it when you work with a toxic boss, for example.

(00:24:19):
You know you can't just say the first thing you want to say to that boss unless you

(00:24:23):
want to get fired.

(00:24:25):
Or you can't say the first thing you want to say to that neighbor unless you want

(00:24:28):
to live next door to a miserable neighbor all the time.

(00:24:32):
So we know how to put ourselves on pause.

(00:24:34):
I just want us to universalize it more.

(00:24:37):
Then you have the second step is to do that internal assessment.

(00:24:43):
Take your own internal temperature.

(00:24:46):
See if you have the bandwidth to even proceed any further with the conversation.

(00:24:53):
Because if you're still feeling raw,

(00:24:56):
if you're still what I call bleeding from your own trauma,

(00:25:00):
then all you're going to do is bleed all over the other person,

(00:25:02):
whether you call them in or out.

(00:25:05):
It doesn't matter.

(00:25:06):
And when people are called in or out, they actually feel the same way about it.

(00:25:10):
They feel embarrassed, like a spotlight has been put on them.

(00:25:13):
So after you've taken that internal assessment,

(00:25:17):
that's when you choose from what I call my 5C continuum.

(00:25:22):
You can call them out,

(00:25:23):
you can cancel them,

(00:25:24):
you can call them in,

(00:25:26):
or you can call on them to do better,

(00:25:28):
or you can call it off and disengage.

(00:25:31):
You have all of those choices.

(00:25:33):
And so that's the third step.

(00:25:35):
Make the choice from that 5C continuum that makes sense for you in that moment,

(00:25:41):
because you have no obligation to call people in or out.

(00:25:45):
Your first obligation should be to see to your own healing.

(00:25:49):
But while you're doing that,

(00:25:52):
you can decide whether you have space to offer grace and respect to someone else at

(00:25:58):
the same time.

(00:26:02):
So when you mentioned kids,

(00:26:03):
I was laughing because my child has been lucky to have a teacher actually for

(00:26:11):
several years now who is a 50-year teaching veteran.

(00:26:15):
And I just adore and admire her.

(00:26:17):
And I've learned a lot about parenting and teaching from her.

(00:26:20):
And she has this thing that she says to kids when they're

(00:26:24):
acting a fool.

(00:26:24):
And she says, what is your plan in this very gentle, kind voice?

(00:26:30):
And one day I asked her,

(00:26:32):
like,

(00:26:32):
how did you get to this point where you could be so patient with children who are

(00:26:35):
acting,

(00:26:36):
you know,

(00:26:36):
like feral monsters?

(00:26:38):
And she looked at me,

(00:26:40):
and this is just this very kind,

(00:26:41):
gentle,

(00:26:42):
sweet old lady who I've never heard use any profanity or anything.

(00:26:45):
And she said, I just decided one day that

(00:26:48):
that what the fuck kind of bullshit are you getting up to?

(00:26:51):
I could just communicate by instead saying, what's your plan?

(00:26:55):
And it's just, I don't know, it seems like the child version of calling in.

(00:26:59):
So that's why I was laughing at that.

(00:27:01):
It is because a lot of people aren't aware of how they are projecting their inner

(00:27:11):
chaos onto others.

(00:27:14):
And with gentle questions,

(00:27:15):
you can help them become more self-examining without accusing them of things.

(00:27:22):
Again, that's what I call offering them a chance to grow.

(00:27:26):
Now, some people actually do want to be jerks.

(00:27:29):
And that's when I say, just own it.

(00:27:31):
Don't act like you're an accidental jerk.

(00:27:36):
But if you're not planning on being a jerk,

(00:27:40):
Do you mind if we discuss how you can say what you mean and mean what you say and

(00:27:46):
then making a choice about not saying it mean?

(00:27:50):
Yeah.

(00:27:51):
Yeah.

(00:27:51):
I really like that.

(00:27:53):
The accidental jerk thing.

(00:27:55):
That's definitely a thing.

(00:27:56):
I wanted to go back because you talked about sort of the book being about your

(00:28:01):
failures and the vulnerability of sharing that.

(00:28:04):
And,

(00:28:04):
you know,

(00:28:05):
I just wanted to share with you that I came to your book as a longtime follower of

(00:28:10):
your work.

(00:28:11):
And,

(00:28:12):
you know,

(00:28:12):
to someone who doesn't know you,

(00:28:13):
who just reads your work and reads about your successes and

(00:28:18):
It's very easy to feel like, oh, this person is just really good at everything.

(00:28:23):
This person just knows how to do everything right.

(00:28:26):
And so seeing where you maybe have not done things right or where you've reflected

(00:28:31):
on that is really powerful,

(00:28:34):
I think,

(00:28:34):
to most people because,

(00:28:37):
you know.

(00:28:38):
I mess up constantly when I'm trying to do the right thing.

(00:28:41):
And to just know that someone else is struggling with those same things and able to

(00:28:45):
use those failures as an opportunity for growth,

(00:28:48):
I think is so important for us all to consider.

(00:28:52):
Well, I think everybody's messing up to some degree or another.

(00:28:57):
I don't know anybody's perfect.

(00:29:00):
I mean, it's alleged that Jesus was, but he's already got that job, so I don't want his job.

(00:29:05):
Yeah.

(00:29:08):
And if you can give yourself the relational intelligence to understand that we're

(00:29:17):
just crappy people with crappy skills trying to make the best of a crappy

(00:29:22):
situation,

(00:29:25):
you really can practice self-forgiveness as well as forgiveness of others.

(00:29:32):
And give people the room to grow.

(00:29:37):
The room to grow phrase that I use repeatedly was one that I came to after my boss,

(00:29:45):
Reverend C.T.

(00:29:46):
Vivian,

(00:29:47):
told me that I needed to help deprogram white supremacists when I was doing

(00:29:52):
opposition research against the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazi movements and stuff.

(00:29:58):
And Reverend Vivian used to often say that when you ask people to give up hate,

(00:30:05):
then you have to be there for them when they do.

(00:30:11):
And when he first told me that, I was like, oh, hell no.

(00:30:16):
That does not work for me.

(00:30:19):
If you hate me, I'm going to hate you back.

(00:30:22):
I'm going to give off the same energy that you're giving me, as we would say now.

(00:30:29):
But I'm so glad Reverend Vivian told me that.

(00:30:33):
because it forced me to,

(00:30:37):
first of all,

(00:30:46):
and I was willing to commit to not giving off that hate anymore,

(00:30:50):
even though in my heart I felt they deserved it.

(00:30:54):
But the question quickly became,

(00:30:56):
but am I the person who's doing the best I can do to become the best person I can

(00:31:02):
be?

(00:31:03):
if I'm walking around giving off hate.

(00:31:07):
The thing that people misunderstand about calling in is that it's not what you do

(00:31:12):
for others,

(00:31:13):
it's what you do for yourself.

(00:31:16):
It's how you are constantly showcasing your ability to grow,

(00:31:21):
your ability to offer love and respect.

(00:31:25):
I find it interesting that so many of our iconic fans

(00:31:30):
Ancestors like Audre Lorde and Bell Hooks and James Baldwin and Dr. King get quoted so well.

(00:31:40):
But they're rarely actually believed by activists.

(00:31:45):
Because every one of those people talked about meeting hate with love.

(00:31:52):
And nobody wants to quote that part of their lives.

(00:31:59):
I find that interesting.

(00:32:01):
It is.

(00:32:01):
I mean, it's hard.

(00:32:03):
It's really hard.

(00:32:04):
And I know.

(00:32:05):
It's harder to just be in a pool of hate all the time, too.

(00:32:09):
But,

(00:32:10):
you know,

(00:32:10):
I think there's this dynamic and I think it's been amplified by social media where

(00:32:15):
we think if something feels good,

(00:32:17):
it is good.

(00:32:18):
So like it feels good to yell at the person who's wrong.

(00:32:22):
It feels good to hold ourselves up as the paragons of moral virtue, even as we know we aren't.

(00:32:28):
And I,

(00:32:30):
that to me,

(00:32:31):
I think that's the thing that people can get really addicted to is it just,

(00:32:35):
it feels so good to tell people how wrong they are.

(00:32:38):
I don't find that as a, as a sustainable joy.

(00:32:45):
No, no, definitely not.

(00:32:47):
It's kind of like cheating at solitaire.

(00:32:49):
Yeah.

(00:32:50):
You won the game, but you also know secretly that you cheated.

(00:32:55):
Yeah.

(00:32:56):
And so you're going around telling everybody else off when you secretly know that

(00:33:01):
you're not perfect either.

(00:33:04):
Well,

(00:33:04):
and you also lose the game long term because if the purpose is to improve the

(00:33:08):
world,

(00:33:09):
you're just you're alienating people.

(00:33:13):
But, you know, it's that trauma piece that you talk about.

(00:33:16):
And I think that's that's been really important for me and my activism to realize that the

(00:33:23):
the places and the ways in which I am most likely to behave badly are in spaces of trauma.

(00:33:30):
And just, I think that insight is so, so important.

(00:33:35):
Well,

(00:33:35):
the Centers for Disease Control scientifically validates that 64% of the adult

(00:33:43):
American public has experienced what they call ACEs,

(00:33:48):
adverse childhood experiences.

(00:33:51):
And that means violence, abuse, or neglect.

(00:33:54):
That's two-thirds of the adult public.

(00:33:57):
And all of that violence, abuse, and neglect happened before they were 18 years old.

(00:34:03):
So two-thirds of everybody you encounter in every setting are walking bundles of trauma.

(00:34:14):
And very, very few have sought professional healing for it.

(00:34:20):
And so...

(00:34:28):
or doing worse, like using drugs or alcohol or other kinds of forms of self-abuse.

(00:34:36):
But once you understand that this isn't personal,

(00:34:39):
this is structural,

(00:34:40):
and this is social trauma,

(00:34:42):
and then on top of all that personal trauma we went through,

(00:34:45):
look what's happening in the world.

(00:34:47):
So that compounds all the personal trauma that we're all having to manage.

(00:34:54):
And so once you see

(00:34:57):
The structural and the social nature of it, for me, it de-individualizes it.

(00:35:04):
And it makes me less likely to want to see the person to be blamed and that they're

(00:35:13):
dysfunctional and just see them as a victimized violator who first got victimized

(00:35:21):
and think that part of their healing is to violate others.

(00:35:25):
in a very self-righteous way.

(00:35:27):
All right.

(00:35:31):
So we're talking about calling in other people and how we can more productively do that.

(00:35:37):
But also pretty much all of us,

(00:35:40):
especially if we have people around us who we can trust,

(00:35:44):
are also going to be called in from time to time.

(00:35:46):
And I want to talk a little bit about sort of defensiveness and those sorts of

(00:35:51):
impulses because feedback is a gift,

(00:35:54):
but it sure doesn't feel like a gift.

(00:35:57):
It can be really hard to receive even a really loving call-in

(00:36:01):
What do you advise people to do to slow down our own reactivity so that we can

(00:36:07):
listen with open minds to the feedback that those around us offer?

(00:36:11):
I find people can learn things pretty easily if you present it as a formula.

(00:36:18):
So I have a one, two, three formula for when you're called out.

(00:36:23):
Number one,

(00:36:24):
it's going to sound counterintuitive,

(00:36:27):
but you can actually thank the person for calling you out.

(00:36:31):
You know, why am I doing that?

(00:36:33):
They just embarrassed me.

(00:36:34):
They just humiliated me.

(00:36:36):
They told me I was wrong.

(00:36:37):
Slow down.

(00:36:38):
Take the pause.

(00:36:40):
What they gifted you with, whether you appreciate it or not, is time and attention.

(00:36:49):
They assured you of your significance because if they thought you were unimportant,

(00:36:54):
they wouldn't have bothered.

(00:36:57):
They obviously think you're important.

(00:37:00):
And they gave you something that the social media companies are spending millions

(00:37:04):
to get,

(00:37:06):
time and attention.

(00:37:08):
So you can sincerely thank them as step one.

(00:37:12):
The thing that the person who called you out probably most sincerely needs is

(00:37:18):
assurance that you've heard them,

(00:37:20):
that you think they're significant as well.

(00:37:24):
So you can say, thank you for bringing that to my attention.

(00:37:28):
I'm going to consider what you've said.

(00:37:32):
You've assured them that you heard them, but what you have not done is agree with them yet.

(00:37:39):
Because you don't know if they're right or wrong.

(00:37:43):
You haven't had time to think about it.

(00:37:44):
You're caught off guard because they just called you out.

(00:37:47):
So you can say thank you and you can tell them that you heard them,

(00:37:51):
but you can also take your own sweet time to decide whether they're right or not.

(00:37:57):
And then the third step is to turn the calling out into a calling in.

(00:38:03):
And with that, I'll say something like, thank you.

(00:38:07):
I'll consider what you said.

(00:38:09):
But since I care as much about you as I do myself and this relationship,

(00:38:15):
I want to know if you're OK,

(00:38:17):
because I'm pretty sure you could have gotten my attention in another way.

(00:38:22):
So what's going on with you?

(00:38:24):
Are you feeling unheard?

(00:38:26):
Are you feeling hurt?

(00:38:27):
And can we have a conversation about that?

(00:38:31):
So you acknowledge their significance.

(00:38:36):
You've gotten them to acknowledge yours.

(00:38:38):
You've acknowledged that you're going to consider what they've said.

(00:38:43):
And you told them that you're willing to have further conversation about what the

(00:38:48):
next steps are.

(00:38:50):
So that diffuses a whole lot right there.

(00:38:54):
You haven't admitted guilt.

(00:38:56):
You haven't dismissed them as being beneath your notice.

(00:39:01):
You haven't escalated it into a defensive, no, I'm not.

(00:39:05):
I didn't do that.

(00:39:06):
Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.

(00:39:08):
You treated them with the human respect you want others to treat you.

(00:39:16):
And it works so beautifully.

(00:39:18):
I see this work over and over again.

(00:39:20):
I'll tell you another example.

(00:39:23):
I teach calling in techniques online.

(00:39:27):
And usually in a room to 300 people.

(00:39:31):
And this one participant is a blind woman who said that every time she has to walk

(00:39:38):
through a door,

(00:39:38):
step up a step,

(00:39:39):
this arm comes out of nowhere and just places it on her body.

(00:39:44):
And because she's a sexual assault survivor,

(00:39:48):
she said,

(00:39:48):
I always react violently to that because I can't see it coming.

(00:39:53):
Somebody's putting their arms on me and

(00:39:56):
I don't know what's going on.

(00:39:57):
And she said, but I don't like reacting that way.

(00:40:00):
What can I do, Loretta?

(00:40:03):
And so I asked her to reframe what she was experiencing as an attempt at kindness done badly.

(00:40:15):
And so here's one, two, three again.

(00:40:19):
One, thank them for their attempt

(00:40:22):
at being kind because you want more kindness.

(00:40:25):
You don't want people to say,

(00:40:27):
I'm never going to help another blind person again because of the way this person

(00:40:30):
reacted.

(00:40:31):
No, that's not what you actually want.

(00:40:33):
You want more kindness.

(00:40:35):
Step two, set your boundary.

(00:40:37):
Just like before,

(00:40:39):
you can say something like,

(00:40:41):
you know,

(00:40:41):
I really appreciate you're trying to help me,

(00:40:44):
but I really don't like strangers putting their hands on me because as you can see,

(00:40:48):
I can't see it coming.

(00:40:49):
So I don't know how to interpret that.

(00:40:52):
Third step.

(00:40:54):
But call them in.

(00:40:57):
If in the future you want to help a blind person,

(00:41:00):
do you mind if we stop and talk a little bit about what would be appropriate?

(00:41:04):
One, two, three.

(00:41:06):
You thank them for their kindness.

(00:41:10):
You set your boundary and you've turned the calling out that you would have offered

(00:41:16):
into a calling in.

(00:41:20):
I love that.

(00:41:21):
I love that formula.

(00:41:22):
And so shortly before I got on Zoom with you,

(00:41:26):
I just happened to watch this video on social media that I've been reflecting on.

(00:41:31):
And it's a young Latino ICE officer at a protest.

(00:41:39):
And he seems he's not displaying the kind of aggression that you see from a lot of

(00:41:44):
these ICE officers.

(00:41:46):
He's kind of hanging back.

(00:41:48):
And there's a young Latino protester talking to him and pushing on him and saying,

(00:41:55):
he's calling him brother.

(00:41:56):
And he's saying, do you like this job?

(00:41:58):
Does this make you feel good about yourself?

(00:42:00):
You're a smart guy.

(00:42:02):
I know there are other things you can do.

(00:42:03):
I can see that there's compassion in your eyes.

(00:42:06):
And I watched this video and I think before I watched the video,

(00:42:11):
I would have said,

(00:42:13):
these ICE people are beyond redemption and there's nothing we can do.

(00:42:16):
But it was

(00:42:17):
It was really masterful.

(00:42:20):
And,

(00:42:21):
you know,

(00:42:21):
I would love to see what happens next or if that officer is thinking about

(00:42:27):
anything.

(00:42:27):
And so that's sort of the context in which I ask you this question,

(00:42:31):
which is we're seeing these ice horrors right now.

(00:42:35):
And I'm seeing, you know, such incredible solidarity.

(00:42:41):
But what I'm also seeing is two conflicting messages about how we bring more people in.

(00:42:47):
And one is that there are Trump voters who are starting to regret their choices.

(00:42:53):
And there are even ICE officers who are starting to regret their choices and that

(00:42:57):
we should try to pull them in.

(00:43:00):
And then the counter message is that,

(00:43:03):
well,

(00:43:03):
you know,

(00:43:04):
these people only care now that there are white people getting hurt or these people

(00:43:07):
are untrustworthy.

(00:43:09):
And this,

(00:43:10):
to me,

(00:43:11):
this kind of dynamic strikes me as a dynamic where your ideas about calling in are

(00:43:16):
really helpful.

(00:43:17):
So I wonder if you would just reflect on that a little bit with me and tell me your thoughts.

(00:43:24):
I've thought deeply about applying calling into the situation with

(00:43:30):
the ICE officers in particular.

(00:43:32):
Now I have a totally different strategy for the Trump administration.

(00:43:35):
I'm calling them out as much as I can because I don't think that they are

(00:43:40):
accidentally being malevolent.

(00:43:42):
I think they're doing it on purpose.

(00:43:44):
So I have a different strategy for the puppeteers than I have for the puppets.

(00:43:49):
But when I think about the ICE situation, I think about being a child during the Vietnam War.

(00:43:57):
And I was a candy striper

(00:44:00):
at our local military hospital.

(00:44:02):
And my job was to deliver library books to the soldiers coming back from Vietnam.

(00:44:07):
And these were boys who were only four years older than me because I was 14.

(00:44:11):
They were like 18, 19, 20, missing half of their bodies.

(00:44:18):
And at the time, there was a lot of protests against the Vietnam War and the soldiers in it.

(00:44:25):
But I could never see it that way.

(00:44:28):
What I saw were a bunch of children,

(00:44:30):
not much older than me,

(00:44:32):
caught up in an economic draft where they didn't have a lot of economic options.

(00:44:37):
They saw going into the military as a way to get their education or take care of

(00:44:42):
their families or just pursue their lives.

(00:44:47):
I think we have a similar situation right now.

(00:44:50):
We have a horrible economy where people can't afford to buy food,

(00:44:55):
pay for their housing,

(00:44:56):
pay for their education.

(00:44:58):
So they're getting this offer of what seems like a tremendous amount of money if

(00:45:03):
they just sign up to be in a uniform like those Vietnam soldiers.

(00:45:08):
But this one is even worse because they're being offered like those $50,000 signing bonuses.

(00:45:14):
But that's not true.

(00:45:15):
They're given $10,000 per year.

(00:45:18):
They only get the 50 if they stay for the five-year enlistment.

(00:45:23):
And if they quit any time before that five years up, they've got to pay back the bonuses.

(00:45:29):
So if you quit after the first year, you got to pay back 10,000.

(00:45:32):
If you quit after the second year, 20, on and on.

(00:45:36):
And so I know that there's a lot of people in the ICE forces who are unabashed

(00:45:44):
racist,

(00:45:45):
the Proud Boys,

(00:45:46):
the Oath Keepers,

(00:45:47):
the January 6th people,

(00:45:48):
people who are not redeemable and not trying to be

(00:45:53):
They are delighting in the cruelty.

(00:45:55):
The cruelty is their point.

(00:45:58):
But I also assume that the majority of the people who sign up for these militarized

(00:46:05):
jobs are people doing it because they're making the best decision they think they

(00:46:10):
can make at the time that they made their decisions.

(00:46:14):
They're being driven by their own pain and suffering, their own economic circumstances.

(00:46:20):
And so it's not popular right now.

(00:46:22):
to talk about humanizing ICE people.

(00:46:26):
I know that.

(00:46:27):
Every time I try to have this conversation,

(00:46:31):
most people want to point out the horrors and not the humanity that's behind those

(00:46:35):
badges and those uniforms.

(00:46:38):
So I'm glad you told me that story because it has been hard for me to even

(00:46:44):
dehumanize the ICE people because

(00:46:49):
I see the larger context in which they're making their decisions and their choices.

(00:46:54):
And I know a lot of them regret the bind that they're in right now because what

(00:47:00):
sounded like an enticing offer to go arrest illegal criminals turned out to not be

(00:47:08):
exactly or even closely what they're being ordered to do.

(00:47:14):
And yet,

(00:47:16):
They're facing a public who has nothing but disgust for the orders that they've

(00:47:22):
been given and see them as complicit in the cruelty and the banality of those

(00:47:30):
orders.

(00:47:33):
And of course, I'm never going to lose sight of the victims.

(00:47:38):
you know,

(00:47:38):
the true victims of people losing their lives and getting harmed and the children

(00:47:42):
being kidnapped and shot in the face and,

(00:47:45):
you know,

(00:47:46):
that kind of thing.

(00:47:47):
Of course,

(00:47:47):
no more than I would lose sight of what happened to the Vietnamese people during

(00:47:52):
the Vietnam War.

(00:47:55):
So I would like those of us who are in the human rights movement to bring a

(00:48:00):
sophisticated analysis to what is going on and not just

(00:48:06):
a us versus them analysis, because that is an oversimplification of what's really taking place.

(00:48:14):
And I would argue that this whole massive assault is not about immigrants to begin with.

(00:48:22):
It's to cover up the Epstein finals.

(00:48:25):
Yes.

(00:48:25):
And we should never lose sight of that.

(00:48:30):
Yeah, it's so true.

(00:48:31):
So one of the things that I've been really trying to hammer with people is that

(00:48:39):
despair is our enemy.

(00:48:40):
Despair is always our enemy, because if we despair, then we don't take meaningful action.

(00:48:46):
But it's really hard right now.

(00:48:48):
I think it's always been really hard to not despair.

(00:48:52):
So I wanted to ask you for our last question.

(00:48:56):
How do you maintain a sense of hope in the face of all the horrors that have been

(00:49:00):
going on for so long?

(00:49:02):
And what advice do you have for listeners in this political moment who really want

(00:49:08):
to do good,

(00:49:08):
but who may feel overwhelmed,

(00:49:10):
scared,

(00:49:11):
and perhaps hopeless?

(00:49:14):
I was very fortunate to have enjoyed the counsel of many great mentors.

(00:49:22):
I became an activist when I was 16 years old.

(00:49:26):
at my first year at Howard University.

(00:49:29):
And of course, I was so cocky.

(00:49:32):
I thought I'd do everything and nobody could tell me anything.

(00:49:36):
And I would weaponize each piece of knowledge I learned and accuse others of being

(00:49:41):
too dumb to know what I know.

(00:49:42):
I mean, it was just the insufferableness of being an early activist.

(00:49:49):
And fortunately,

(00:49:50):
the people,

(00:49:51):
the older people in my life,

(00:49:52):
the mentors who had been in the movement for a long time,

(00:49:55):
didn't give up on insufferable me.

(00:49:59):
And they offered me all kinds of sage advice, but I can pull out a few snippets.

(00:50:05):
The first one is a saying from the civil rights movement.

(00:50:10):
Don't let your ego imagine that you're the entire chain of freedom because the

(00:50:16):
chain of freedom stretches back towards your ancestors and forward towards your

(00:50:22):
descendants.

(00:50:24):
Your only job at this moment is to not let the chain break at your link.

(00:50:32):
Make sure you don't break that chain or make it brittle through your apathy or

(00:50:37):
despair or hopelessness or your sense that nothing can be done,

(00:50:43):
that your efforts are insignificant because they are important,

(00:50:50):
no matter how minor they may seem in the larger scheme of things.

(00:50:55):
And so when people come at me with this cynicism that there's nothing we can do or

(00:51:02):
nothing will matter,

(00:51:03):
nothing can be effective,

(00:51:05):
I remind them of the chain of freedom,

(00:51:08):
that you don't have to take responsibility for the past or the future,

(00:51:15):
but you do have to take responsibility for having the privilege of seeing your link

(00:51:21):
and choosing whether you're going to nurture that link and protect it

(00:51:25):
Or you're going to break it because you're smarter than all the ancestors and all

(00:51:30):
the descendants.

(00:51:31):
So that's the first thing.

(00:51:34):
Now, I used to also go through life looking at all the horrors that people do to each other.

(00:51:41):
Because when you monitor hate groups, you're going to see a lot of the consequences of hate.

(00:51:47):
People dying.

(00:51:49):
People traumatized.

(00:51:50):
Whole communities terrorized and stuff.

(00:51:54):
And one of my mentors,

(00:51:56):
Leonard Zeskin,

(00:51:58):
saw me in a real depression and sense of despair after a five-year-old black child

(00:52:05):
had perished in a fire because the fire department was being run by a man in the Ku

(00:52:12):
Klux Klan.

(00:52:13):
And he called black homes burning neighborhood beautification.

(00:52:18):
And so he intentionally delayed fire trucks coming to black fires in black homes.

(00:52:25):
And Lenny told me to lighten up.

(00:52:28):
Lenny said, Loretta, you need to learn that fighting Nazis can be fun.

(00:52:34):
It's being a Nazi that sucks.

(00:52:38):
And he made me laugh involuntarily because he gave me perspective.

(00:52:44):
Fighting for truth and justice and human decency is a joy.

(00:52:51):
It's a privilege.

(00:52:54):
the people who are fighting against happiness and joy and decency,

(00:53:00):
they're the ones having a miserable life.

(00:53:02):
Because you have to imagine how tortured that soul has to be to despise empathy,

(00:53:10):
to despise compassion,

(00:53:13):
to despise neighborliness like we're seeing in Minnesota.

(00:53:17):
So that was also some sage advice.

(00:53:20):
And then the one that

(00:53:22):
I just laugh every time I have to say it.

(00:53:25):
The reason I've been able to do this work for well over 50 years is someone once

(00:53:31):
told me,

(00:53:33):
Loretta,

(00:53:33):
you need to party as hard as you work.

(00:53:37):
And it's not hard to tell a teenager to party,

(00:53:39):
but I didn't know that it was part of a resilience strategy.

(00:53:44):
So I have a toggle switch to my consciousness.

(00:53:47):
I can turn it on.

(00:53:49):
When I need to be woke and pay close attention to the news and the newspapers show

(00:53:54):
up at the demonstration,

(00:53:55):
you know,

(00:53:56):
write that paper or that post on Twitter or whatever.

(00:54:00):
And then I can turn it off and just watch,

(00:54:05):
you know,

(00:54:05):
HGTV mindlessly with no shame,

(00:54:09):
with no regret,

(00:54:10):
with no guilt.

(00:54:12):
Because sustainability means preparing for the long haul.

(00:54:18):
not just for the here and now.

(00:54:20):
I think that's great advice.

(00:54:24):
And I think that's a great note to end this on.

(00:54:28):
Loretta, thank you so much for coming on.

(00:54:30):
I can't tell you how excited I am that I got to talk to you.

(00:54:33):
I'm so grateful for your work and knowing that you are out there in the world

(00:54:38):
really inspires me to do and be better.

(00:54:40):
So thank you.

(00:54:43):
Listeners,

(00:54:43):
I will put all of Loretta's information and books in the show notes,

(00:54:47):
as well as on the Liberating Motherhood bookshop reading list.

(00:54:50):
I really hope you'll explore Colligan and all of Loretta's amazing work.

(00:54:54):
As always, thanks for being here.

(00:54:56):
And again, thank you, Loretta.

(00:54:59):
Thank you again.