NEPHTC was  pleased to host Loretta Ross in October as a speaker on the important topic of the Call Out – or Cancel – culture, and what it is doing to our classrooms, workplaces, and country.  She found a receptive public health workforce audience.  She also spoke for NEPHTC, in partnership with the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health,  in November on Human Rights and in December on Reproductive Justice.

Loretta Ross has a long career in activism, including working with hate groups, and believes that with a different approach than shaming and blaming, usually a conversation, that we are more likely to achieve our [public health] goals.

In the past week, Loretta Ross has been featured prominently in the media, who have been attracted to her message that we need “democratic speech environments”  and that “Everyone does not have to agree with us to be with us.”

Some of her appearances have been in the New York Times, Amanpour and Company and on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

NEPHTC encourages its followers to watch our Calling In, Not Calling Out webinar recording, and to download Loretta Ross’s slides.  We are looking for more opportunities to capture her learning so it can be more usable for the classroom and the workplace.

Synopsized interactions with Loretta Ross in webinar:

Participant: What about Calling out a police chief who has protected ‘killer’ cops?

Ross: “Call Outs do work.  It has brought corporations to their knees…  So I’m saying we should use our judgement and our discretion to use them only when everything else has failed.  Don’t start with the call out.  An invitation to that police chief to a dialogue should be your first strategy.”

Participant: How do we deal with the tension that there have been public health successes from calling out?

Ross: “Yes, there have been public health successes … You can create a culture shift to make it the norm to do a certain behavior. We created a culture shift around cigarette smoking and drunk driving.  …   You can do this but you don’t start with blaming shaming and humiliating. There are other ways to do it.”