Does Calling Others Out Foster Accountability?

How does calling others out (or in) foster a culture of safety, trust, and inclusion?

I'll wait while you mull it over.... 🤔

What did you come up with?

I think people call others out or in because they believe that if someone caused harm, that individual must be held accountable for their words and actions. Let me say up front that calling out others can be an important way for people who have been silenced or traumatized-- especially women and those from minoritized communities--to step into their power and advocate for justice. So, in some situations I think calling out another person/group is exactly the right thing to do.

The key question for me is: How do we encourage people who have caused harm to take meaningful accountability for the impact they have had? The public performance of call-outs (on social media, especially) seldom is grounded in reparative practices, because they seek more to police/punish than to educate. As a result, call outs (or even call ins) often don’t foster meaningful accountability, connection, and trust.

I began to question my practice of calling others' out/in in 2022, thanks to the transformative exchange I had with author and trauma-informed practitioner Natalia Rachel. Natalia gently prompted me reconsider the role my trauma might play in my hypervigilance. I ultimately concluded that calling out others was actually undermining the safe(r) space I was trying to create on my LinkedIn page. Yikes!

Now, if I feel it's important to call someone out or in, I first check in with myself, trying to get curious—and honest!—about what's going on for me emotionally. These are the questions I ask myself:

📍 Is calling out/in necessary? (Is there another way to address the issue?)
📍 Is now the right time for me to address the issue?
📍 Is my underlying purpose beneficial to others and/or me?
📍 Is it necessary to address this matter publicly?

In a similar vein, Paul R. Johnson offers his questions:

📍“Am I wanting to call someone out in order to self-soothe?”
📍“Am I upset because I actually recognize that I, too, hold the same harmful beliefs and that’s too difficult to face?”
”📍Am I attempting to posture as a self-righteous person by the call out or am I actually trying to restore and repair harm?”

The point of this article isn't to argue against call-out culture categorically; instead, my goal is to remind equity advocates that calling others out is best conceptualized as your “break the glass” strategy to use when other attempts to repair harm haven’t worked.

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