Journeys to Leadership

She said, It's not that you don't let success go to your head, but you don't let failure go to your heart. Hello and welcome to Agnes Scott College's podcast, Journeys to Leadership, where we explore the paths of inspiring women leaders from around the globe. I'm Leo Kza, president of Agnes Scott and the host of this podcast.

I hope that our guest stories not only encourage you, our listeners and leaders of today and tomorrow, but they also inspire you as you take the next steps in your own journey. We are delighted to announce that since the recording of our podcast, Dr. Loretta Ross has been named a 2022 MacArthur fellow.

All of us at Agnes Scott are extremely proud of her. Congratulations, Loretta. Today's guest is an activist, public, intellectual, and scholar. She is written on and advocates for reproductive justice and the history of African American women. Ross started her career in activism in social justice in the 1970s working at the National Football League Player's Association, the DC Rape Crisis Center, the National Organization for Women, the National Black Women's Health Project.

The Center for Democratic Renewal, the National Center for Human Rights Education and Sister Song, Women of Color, Reproductive Justice Collective until retiring as an organizer in 2012 to teach about activism. She's an associate professor at Smith College and graduated with a degree in women's Studies from Agnes Scott College.

Our guest has dedicated her life and has traveled around the world speaking on reproductive justice, appropriate whiteness, human rights, violence against women, and calling in the call out culture. As Loretta describes in her TED Talk, she shares strategies that help challenge wrongdoing while still creating space for growth, forgiveness, and maybe even an unexpected friend.

We are so excited to have her on our show. Please join me in welcoming Loretta Jay Ross. Now, thanks for having me on the. We're so delighted to have you on our show As we begin, and to set the scene a little bit, can you tell us a little more what is calling in the call out culture? Well, I think in this era of fighting for everybody's attention, what they call the attention economy, that we reached an age of intolerance on both the left and the.

Where we don't really want to hear each other's points of view. We don't want to deal with people who don't agree with us, and that's leading us to call each other out, usually using very harsh words, public shaming, even some form of hazing or social exile, because we think that's the way to achieve accountability, to get people to do the right thing.

But unfortunately, it discourages. From doing the right thing. Cause like any other human being, if someone's gonna shame you and blame you and shout at you, it kind of makes you shut down. You don't want to hear what they've got to say cuz they've humiliated you. So the call out culture is what everybody's familiar with and about six years ago, I started teaching people about calling in another way of achieving accountability.

But instead of using anger, blaming and shaming, I'd rather use love and respect as a way of getting people's attention, and I think that increases the likelihood that they'll listen to anything I have to say. Well, we're gonna talk about that a little more, but we'd love to know how did you get to this point?

So tell us a little bit about where you grew up. Well, I was from a military family. Dad was in the army, uh, lifers as they saved, but basically I claimed San Antonio, Texas as my hometown. Not because I lived a long time there, but that's where he retired to, and that's where I graduated high school at 16, and my first foray into college.

Was Howard University in 1970, but before I went to college, unfortunately, I experienced incest at the hands of a cousin, and I became pregnant in my 10th grade of high school. And so there was a real question of whether I would even graduate from high school because it was accustomed to expel girls for being pregnant.

In 1968, they didn't try to keep us in school or anything like that, and because abortion was not legal, I had no choice but to have the baby. The only choice I had was whether to keep him or give him up for adoption. So by choosing to keep my son. Who was born in 1969. I went from being a scared teenager, not even knowing anything about incest, rape or sexual assault into a parenting mother at the age of 15, and so I graduated at 16, got a scholarship to Harvard University.

But as you can imagine, parenting and going to college with a major in chemistry and physics was not the easiest thing to do in the world. So I dropped out after three years, never completed that degree, and it wasn't until my son graduated college himself that I found the courage to go back to college.

And that college was agne. Because I was giving a lecture at Agnes Scott on women's leadership, and one of the professors asked me, Well, Loretta, is there anything in life you haven't done that you wanna do? And I said, Graduate college , you know, and that's amazing. And so she and Tina Pippin, I, I, I saw Williams and Tina Pippin formed a sister circle around me, and I was able to spend seven years at Agnes Scott College finally getting a degree.

And I'm so happy that happened to. . Well, that's so amazing. And what you have done is taken such strength. And you described a couple professors that supported you. Did you have other support mechanisms along the way? Well, I've always had the company and the support of older black women in my life. I would not be here.

As an activist, as a scholar, as anything, if these older black women in the Washington DC community didn't give up on insufferable me because I became an activist as 16, so I thought I knew everything and I was mouthy and foul mouth and trying to work against a parid and gentrification and all the issues that were roiling around in the 1960s and seventies in Washington DC and these older black.

Who didn't like me, I could tell that cuz I had these dreadlocks just butting out over my head and they were like, Why did she do something with that hair kinda thing? Well, they could see my promise and they didn't like me, but they mentored me. So most of them have passed on unfortunately cuz they were in their forties and fifties, 50 years.

but I really pay tribute to that black feminist community of Washington DC that took me in, brought me to the rape crisis center, sat my feet on the path of feminism, and I owe everything to them and to different mentors. When I moved to Atlanta in 1989, I was lucky enough to then learn about the civil rights.

Because I was a weird black woman, I learned about women's rights before I learned about civil rights . I did everything backwards, right? And it was Reverend Ct Vivian, who was my boss and my mentor when I monitored hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan. And it was there. I learned how to talk to people that I wouldn't necessarily wanna bring home for coffee.

but I couldn't hate them once I got to know them. Cuz he used to say all the time that when you ask people to give up hate, then you need to be there for them when they do. And when he said that, I didn't know what he was talking about until I got to know these people who were leaving hate groups. And wanted ahead back into society.

And you have been such an impactful leader in this area. Is this something you think you were born with? I mean, you were an activist at 15, Um, Or is this something that you think you developed over time? Well, I was an invisible child cuz I was number six of eight children and the middle girls. So I was bookish and always stayed hidden in my room reading.

So I didn't think I found my voice until in the seventh grade. I was invited to join the debate team at my school. Back then, there were courses you had to take that were mandatory in high schools that aren't available anymore, like taking public speaking, taking debate, taking typing, or I learned how to type a hundred words a minute.

All those things were, were pretty, uh, regular in my school. And when I joined the debate team, I had to read all these magazines like Newsweek, Time, you know? Use a world report, all of the in order to debate, and that's where I found my voice in the seventh grade. So by the 10th grade, I had started the girls drill team at my school.

Coming from a military family, I kind of noticed that they had a drill team and an ROTC team for boys, but they didn't have one for girls. So I said, I'm gonna start a girl's drill team. And so, Looking back, I think that was when my leadership was developing, but I didn't know it as leadership. I just felt that it was unfair.

The boys had something the girls didn't have. The same way they kicked the girls out of school for being pregnant, but never the boys that impregnated them. So this sexism was all around me. I just didn't have a name for it at the time. . But you were someone who was always speaking up and also finding your way.

Um, But also I really appreciate the fact that people reached out to you, and that's one thing that we find so often is that women often support other women. You mentioned that, um, do you continue to see that in your life? I see it all the time. Still. I see it. I try to pass it on. That's why I'm always surrounded by young people.

In my life, I generally live with college students cuz every summer I've taken a lot of interns who are working at the organizations around, uh, Atlanta because they can't afford housing if they're working for free. So I'm always populating my life with. 18, 19, 20, and 21 year olds and they keep me fresh.

They keep me. Aren't they awesome? Oh they are. It's a little challenging living with them. I have to honestly say, cause I'm not their mother, I'm more like their mentor and their landlord, but still, I would. I've done it for the last five or six years and loved every minute of it. That's fantastic. Let's talk a little more about the call in method.

Do you recall, when was the first time you used it? How did it go? Is it something you've developed over time? Well, I didn't even know that the calling out was taking place until I was forced on Facebook. My grandson, At the age of 12, basically decided that he didn't know how to answer the phone. He would just let all the calls go to voicemail.

And when I chatted him for it, he said, Well, grandma, get on Facebook. And that's the way I communicate. I got on Facebook and wouldn't you know that kid migrated off because he said it's where all folks now . But I stayed on Facebook cause I wasn't following him to Snapchat or to talk or wherever he was.

And then I noticed how mean people were to each other through the anonymity of social media. And I speculated that they dared say things to people anonymously that they didn't, wouldn't say to people face to face. So I asked a young person in my life, What's going on here? What's all this nastiness? And she said, Oh, the call out culture.

I said, Y'all have named it . Yeah. There's a name for everything, right? ? She said, Yeah. I said, What are y'all doing about it? She kinda shrugged and walked away, and that just started a chain of thinking in my head. I remember when I had to call in rapists who had raped and murdered black women. Through our program at the DC Rape Crisis Center called Prisoners Against Rape.

As I said, I had called in ex clansman, ex neo-Nazis, but I didn't know to call it calling in at that time. It was having dialogue with people. That you weren't trying to become friends with them, but you were trying to keep a conversation going and so then I started thinking about calling in as a framework about 2015, and then I started writing a book on it.

Much to my surprise, , but I shouldn't have been that I found out that I was not original with it. There had been an 18 year old trans man named Long Trans who had written an article about the call out culture in twenty thirteen, two years before, and it was in my book research that I discovered them and the work that they had done, and so I was like, Oh my goodness, I'm not original, but at least.

Create, I can deal with this pedagogically. And so I started lecturing on it, teaching it, and incorporating it into my classroom. And last year I was successful in hiring loan to come work for me to teach it online with me . Oh, that's fantastic. That's wonderful. What a wonderful partnership. Well, you have been on TED Talks, you know, been on print in the New York Times, been with you know, leaders.

Many people wonder, have you ever experienced the imposter syndrome? Oh, it's a constant chatter in your ear to keep you humble. Cuz my mother said to me when she sent me off to college, she said, Loretta, I like the fact that you don't like success. Go to your head. And I said, Oh mama. Yeah, right. I rere just like you do.

She said, It's not that you don't let success go to your. But you don't let failure go to your heart. Oh, isn't that beautiful? And I've kept my mother's words in my. Ever since that I've made large mistakes, some of which it ended up in national newspapers, but I don't let it hold me back. I, I try to do the best I can cuz I realize early on that I don't have to be perfect because the human rights movement that I'm working for is perfect.

I can be my flawed, imperfect imposter syndrome, feel self and still give my soul to the movement, and that's what I take a joy. I'm not trying to do it perfectly, I'm just trying to do it. Well, you've touched on it because at the same time people talk about success and what they do is to be successful.

What motivates you? I think what motivates me is the fear of not realizing all that I can be. Cuz that's what took me back to college. I mean, there was, I wasn. I didn't go back to college at 48 because I thought I could get a better job. By that time, I'd been doing the work and had retired almost a new retirement from social justice work, but I don't like giving up on my dreams and.

That has all, it was like a, a, a, a Ill fitting shoe. My life was all that I achieved, I always felt bad about what I didn't do that promised to my mother to finish college cuz she didn't have a chance to go and she wanted me to go so badly. Matter of fact, at her eight kids, Six of us went to college and she was so proud of that.

And I was the one who didn't graduate. Right. So she died before she saw me graduate, but my son and my grandson were at my graduation in 2007, and I'm really proud of that. I probably was the oldest graduate of the class of 2007. Well, we are so thrilled that you were a graduate of Agnes Scott College and are an alum of Agnes Scott College, and I'm sure your mother would've been incredibly proud of you for doing.

She would've been. Well, I have a question for young people, maybe not just young people, potential leaders everywhere. Um, what advice would you give them? Well, I have to pass on the wisdom that other people gave me cuz it stood the test of time when I made mistakes. One of my older women mentors said, Loretta, when you have bad news about yourself, run and tell it first so that you can control the.

So I learned not to be afraid of my own bad news, of my own mistakes among foible. Because she taught me how to handle them. Another friend of mine who was the premier anti-fascist researcher in the world, uh, Leonard zk, he told me a long time ago, he said to Loretta, You need to lighten up. You need to party as hard as you work because fighting Nazis should be fun.

It's being a Nazi. That sucks . I kept his advice in in my head, and I've learned that I sustained my energy for the movement because I have a toggle switch to my consciousness. There are times when I turn my consciousness off so I can watch Twilight without making a feminist critique of it, , you know? So those are my three strategies.

Run and tell your own bad news. Party as hard as you work and turn that consciousness off so that you can understand life is joyful. Well, as you look to the future, is there's anything in particular that excites you? I think young people excite me. Young people excite me because they're full of so much energy and promise, and, and, and they have such creative ideas and the way that they deal with this technology.

Astonishes me cuz I'm the girl who's VCR is still blinking, blinking, blinking . And that you still have a vcr right? As well as a, as well as a turntable. But, uh, I really love the creativity of the young people that I teach. Even the young people I went to school with and to Scott, they had to show me how to use computers and take exams by computers and all those things.

If they hadn't supported me through that technology. I don't know. what I would've done, I would've probably thrown my skirt over my head and just ran away screening or something. Well, I'm gonna ask you my last question, which is what kind of encouragement would you give to future leaders? When I started out in my activism, we didn't have what was called a nonprofit industrial complex in.

Seek jobs and send in resumes to and things like that. And so I learned early on to find the work that made me happy, volunteered to do it, and then worked so hard that they paid me to do what I loved to do. And that's been my pathway for finding jobs my entire life. I don't know when the last time I submitted a, a job application or anything.

I found the work that made me happy, worked at it as a volunteer until I was able to convince the decision makers that I would be a good addition to their. And I really would offer that as great advice cuz it's worked for me and now there's so many more jobs and opportunities available than there were in the 1970s.

So, you know, don't do the old corporate, send out the resume and pray kind of thing. Find out what makes you happy, do it for free, and then convince somebody to pay you to do it well. One of the reasons that those opportunities are there is because of people like you. Um, thank you so much for everything you've done for women, um, to advance women and to advance women of color as well.

We are so grateful for everything that you've. Well, thanks for having me on your show. Absolutely. Um, Loretta, thank you so much for your time. To our listeners, I hope you are encouraged and inspired. Thank you for listen. Loretta j Ross's journey is one of many that we can't wait to share with you. If you would like to hear more from her, please listen to her podcast, Dread Feminist with Loretta j Ross.

Thank you so much for joining us. I also want to thank our producer Sidney Perry, for making this podcast possible. I am Leo Kaia, Zach, and this is Journeys to Leader. Looking for more content. Check out, Leading Everywhere. The Agnes Scott College Podcast, a show that shares the stories of the campus community, students, faculty, staff, and alumni available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.