Topic 3 Assume Good Intent

We live in a culture that is largely “call out” rather than “call in”. People point out things that others do and say while also implying that the offender is essentially a sexist/homophobe/racist, or at the least, uncaring and potentially ignorant. Some have called this a “toxic call-out culture” in which people almost compete to demonstrate to others how woke they are. We all have unconscious bias of some sort.  That does not make us bad people, it makes us human.

This is important for people to remember as they call out biases in other people.  Calling someone out as a bad person is unproductive for pointing out a specific action that person took, helping them understand why it was a problem, and really improving that person’s future behavior. As such, we prefer to think of speaking up in terms of “calling people in” to a conversation. Speaking up will go most productively if people assume good intent in others.