The Appropriate Response to a Call-in

Kinds of Harmful Speech

There are many instances where one can get called out, or called in, for something one says. Often these include being corrected for misgendering someone, using inappropriate language, or saying something that contributes to oppression in some way. The advice generally given for someone in this situation is to accept the correction, apologise and move on. The idea is that it ensures that the person who made a mistake acknowledges it but doesn't make a whole show of exactly how bad they feel about it because ultimately, they want to be validated by the person they've wronged (or the group) that they are not bad people. However, this often results in people saying "I'm sorry" and moving on without actually meaning it, which usually results in the mistake occurring again without the person actually making an effort to change, and ultimately makes it less likely for that change to occur. I'd like to talk about our expectations around correcting people when mistakes are made. Specifically, I'd like to contest the idea that "say sorry and move on" is the best possible response to being corrected, and offer an alternative approach.

The issue with making mistakes—especially around things like language—is that there are many routes to the mistake happening. First, it could be genuine ignorance. Not everyone is aware of everything, and as long as one is not refusing to learn, ignorance, by itself, is not a mistake (It can become problematic if it is rooted in wilful refusal to empathise with others or utter antipathy towards one's fellow people, of course). It could be that the person is a bigot, and/or wants to signal their ideological dislike for what they believe is undesired "political correctness" by choosing to use offensive terms/misgender the people involved. Perhaps while the person does not hold any actively antagonistic attitudes towards oppressed groups, the person also happens to (as a member of the corresponding privileged groups) not understand/care about the disparity in power and privilege and so not make a conscious effort to refrain from using abusive language. Maybe the speaker has some sense of linguistic stubbornness, or a desire to maintain and prescribe language rules as they exist (I'd recommend following Sunn m'Cheaux, who regularly critiques these constructs), despite harm to others. Sometimes the person understands privilege and cares about not perpetuating oppression or causing harm to people through one's behaviour/language, but struggles with doing so for any number of reasons (examples include disability and linguistic unfamiliarity). It is possible that the person does not struggle with changing behaviour but occasionally slips up as a matter of habit, or honestly struggles with changing habits of mind even when they really try.

I would categorise these reasons into three main groups; (1) abusive: where the person actively wants to harm or does not care to reduce harm to the person/group, (2) barriers: where the issue is mainly disability/other barriers, such as unfamiliarity with language, and (3) legacy: where the person actively cares about reducing harm, but struggles because of habits of mind or behaviour that are not easy to reform. This post is mainly concerned with the last two, where the person corrected cares about changing.

Responses to Correction

Provided that one is not actively trying to be bigoted or uncaring, how does one respond to mistakes being corrected? We as a society need to get better at acknowledging and correcting mistakes. Saying "sorry" is usually meant to communicate how the mistake-maker feels: "I am sorry" implies that the person regrets the behaviour, possibly admitting to a sense of shame at having done it. In this form, it can operate as an acknowledgement/taking responsibility for the harm and a signifier that one recognises the harm that has been done, because one feels the shame of having done it. Its etymological roots lie in feelings of pain/sorrow/remorse/wretchedness. This hints at it being tied to retributive justice: where the response to wrongdoing is to punish the wrongdoer in proportion to the wrong. Many people reject retributive justice, suggesting instead that wrongdoing should be met with restorative justice - where the wrongdoer is made accountable and responsible for repairing the harm caused. This is not always possible; some wrongdoings result in permanent damage that cannot be undone, making restorative justice inadequate, even if rehabilitative justice might still work.

Retribution often caters to some of our more unsavoury instincts: revenge, anger, and pride. Eschewing retribution allows us to have accountability for the harm rather than to maintain a toxic cycle and/or potentially create more harm through retaliation. It is not necessary to forego the needs that usually drive retribution either: the need for justice, validating and feeling the harm and pain caused, and feeling a sense of shared sorrow. When harmed, we need to know that we are not alone in feeling hurt, and that others share the burden our pain, particularly the person causing the pain who ought to be bearing it instead. These can be explicitly sought and satisfied through restorative and rehabilitative processes. These can include deliberate actions to validate, hold space for and move through anger while not ignoring the pain/hurt at its core. This is where the notion of apology is both relevant and insufficient: a person seeking to apologise must understand that they are attempting to satisfy the needs for justice, validation and shared pain: each circumstance is different and entirely dependent on what the person who was harmed feels and needs from them. Prevention and safety might additionally entail boundaries on interaction with the person harmed.

With abuse/harmful behaviour/hurt, it often (unfortunately) falls on the person who is hurt to call it out. Not only are many people ignorant about different kinds of abuse, but people do not always have the courage to call out those who enact them. The is pretty evident in recordings of street harassment: while there are many videos of people harassing and abusing others on the internet, it's rare to see bystanders (as opposed to victims) respond to/call out abusers. Responsibility for stopping abuse should never be placed on the victim, but on the perpetrator(s) of the abuse. Silent bystanders can contribute to the systemic abuse by indicating to abusers that they will not be held accountable. In the situation where someone (particularly someone who is dealing with the abuse that they are calling out) highlights that something that was done/said was harmful, the response must both acknowledge the harm and recognise that the harmed person has essentially taken on the work of preventing it. Of course, where the thing being called out is actively malicious, as opposed to being ignorant or mistaken, it is unlikely that a call-out would be effective in ceasing the abuse. Here we require more active interventions by society to stop the person from persisting with the abuse.

An alternative approach

This is where the best response to being called in on something one has said is to appreciate the correction. A 'thank you' to a call-in indicates that the person has a shared goal with the caller: an inclusive world. The person frames themselves as being a collaborator with the caller in their goals of inclusion, and understands that the call-out benefits them in helping them move towards their (shared) goal. It demonstrates to the caller that they are not alone in having this goal, that the problem is collective and societal and requires collective effort to change.

It demonstrates that the person called out is not harmed by it: I am not harmed by someone telling me that something is harmful to them, I am better informed as a result; I have more information to work on, and have been given means to achieve the goals of inclusion that I share with the caller. The response also recognises that the caller trusts me: I would not dare to talk about something a person did if I did not feel safe enough to do so. The sense of loneliness is pervasive among those of us fighting oppression. This is not because we are alone or the only ones seeking inclusion in the world, but because it is fairly common for us to be in situations where we are surrounded by people who are not in the margins as we are, or in the same margins as us, and therefore do not recognise our needs and often enough, do not care about them either.

Responding with appreciation demonstrates that the person appreciates the calling in, affording encouragement to others to do so as well: when we are appreciated for standing up to oppression, we are less likely to be afraid of doing so. It demonstrates to other people that it is not shameful to learn from a mistake, and offers them a path to do so themselves. It recognises that there is work being done for the person corrected: work that ought to have been done by the corrected person, that has been done by someone else instead. Appreciating this work demonstrates that I do understand that it was work that needed doing, and that someone else has offered to do that on my behalf. Finally, it shifts the focus from the shame of the mistake-maker onto the problem itself: that the thing said was harmful, and we would collectively like to not harm (wittingly or unwittingly) the people we interact with. It moves the frame of reference from an individualistic interaction of mistaken vs caller to a societal issue of collectively wanting to prevent harm and appreciating efforts to prevent harm. While an apology may still be apropos—especially if the caller is personally harmed by the mistake—responding additionally with appreciation creates a positive context for change.

Appreciation is affirming to both the giver and the recipient. To the person who made a mistake, thanking the person who corrected them eases the process by which we change our habits of mind; it's a way of training our monkey-brains to seek to improve ourselves, and to associate self-improvement with positive emotions to solidify the changes we seek to make in ourselves. Self-flagellation is ultimately about negative reinforcement, which is rarely ever as effective as positive reinforcement of good behaviour. Appreciation for correction ultimately makes us more likely to accept our own fallibility, shun perfectionism, and undo harmful habits we may have picked up from toxic environments. It's also affirming to the recipient, for whom the appreciation indicates and reinforces the idea that they are not alone in caring about the problem; that it is good (and safe with the giver) to collectively seek these changes.