Calling In - How to Start Making Change with Those You'd Rather Cancel
- 6D Living
- Feb 2
- 3 min read
From a pioneering Black feminist and MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, Loretta J. Ross, this urgent and exhilarating memoir-manifesto-handbook provides bold, practical new ways to transform conflicts into connections, even with those we’re tempted to walk away from.
Calling In is at once a handbook, a manifesto, and a memoir—because the power of Loretta Ross’s message comes from who she is and what she’s lived through. She’s a Black woman who’s deprogrammed white supremacists, and a survivor who’s taught convicted rapists the principles of feminism. With stories from her five remarkable decades in activism, she vividly illustrates why calling people in—inviting them into conversation instead of conflict and focusing on your shared values over a desire for punishment—is the more strategic choice if you want to make real change. And she shows you how to do so, whether in the workplace, on a college campus, or in your living room.
Courageous, awe-inspiring, and blisteringly authentic, Calling In is a “masterclass in constructive confrontation” (Adam Grant) and a practical new solution from one of our country’s most extraordinary change-makers—one anyone can learn to use to transform frustrating and divisive conflicts that stand in the way of real connection with the people in your life.
Listen as Loretta J. Ross speaks at a TEDtalk in August of 2021. Her recently new book may have even more ways for us to practice Calling In and perhaps working together we could profoundly change our world.
Please consider joining the 6D Book Club exploring Calling In on Tuesdays beginning on May 5th, 2026. This journey could help us all to better understand that their is no 'other' there is only us, humanity, and we have to power to decide what our humanity will be in truth.
In 1979, Loretta Ross was a single mother in Washington who’d had to drop out of Howard University. She was working at the DC Rape Crisis Center when the organization got a letter from a man in prison saying he wanted to learn how to not be a rapist anymore. At first, she was furious. As a survivor of sexual violence, she wanted to write back pouring out her rage. Instead, she made a different choice, a choice to reject the response her trauma was pushing her towards. This choice would set her on the path towards developing a framework that would come to guide her whole career: Rather than calling people out, try to call even your unlikeliest allies in. Hold them accountable—but with love.
Loretta J. Ross is an activist, professor, and public intellectual. In her five decades in the human rights movement, she’s deprogramed white supremacists, taught convicted rapists the principles of feminism, and co-organized the second largest march on Washington (surpassed only by the 2017 Women’s March). The founder of the National Center for Human Rights Education and a cofounder of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, her many accolades and honors include a 2022 MacArthur Fellowship and a 2024 induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Today, Ross is an associate professor at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and the founder of LoRossta Consulting, with which she runs “Calling In” training sessions online and for organizations around the country.
Sia is a graduate of the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies, completing the Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate. She also received a qualification in Nutrition and Healthy Living from eCornell. She has studied BioMedicine at the College of Naturopathic Medicine and has coaching qualifications for Intermittent Fasting, Gut/Microbiome Health and Vegan Nutrition. Sia has also completed the Gut Health/Microbiome Masterclass with Dr Bulsiewicz. She is a member of the Association of Naturopathic Practitioners and the International Association of Therapists.
Sia moderates book clubs with a focus on books that focus on nutritional health, The Four Agreements series as well as on books that help us to nurture our social connections without judgement or negativity. These books focus on how each of us can best navigate life for our individual needs of health and wellbeing. Sia is also an administrator on our 6D Facebook Page - and the writer of these posts, of course!
Be well
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