Is This a Time for Bridging?
Making or repairing connections with opposing groups seems like something we should do, but should we do it now? When I look back at 2025, I am inspired by the No Kings demonstration of over 7 million people, the protests at ICE facilities and the gathering on street corners throughout the country.. Should 2026 be more of the same, or is it time to heal our fragmentation?
John a. Powell, the Director of the Belonging and Othering Institute at UC Berkeley, believes that it’s time for bridging. In his new book, The Power of Bridging, Powell points to the increase in fragmentation and isolation as reasons for the urgency. Although there are multiple causes for fragmentation, Powell highlights the phenomenon of rapid change.
The collective anxiety that we are experiencing due to the pace of change in the world today can be met with fear and more anxiety or it can be met by creating opportunities to turn toward one another and build a larger we that can face the future together. I believe bridging is one such opportunity (25-26).
So, should we fight or bridge? I suppose people will do both. My question is which one, in the next year, will be more effective in promoting a climate of justice?
Central to understanding a climate of justice is the observation that the United States began in a climate of injustice and that has never been fully repaired or ratified. Seeing the problem as fragmentation caused by rapid change does not seem to fully capture the legacy of white supremacy caused by European slavery and genocide.
Let me say that as a respected and influential Black leader, Power certainly knows more about injustices in America than I do. Still, as a white writer, who continues to learn about European-American whiteness, I see the need to protest against Trump’s MAGA bullying and to protect the vulnerable. In a sense, the climate of injustice has become more visible than ever in my lifetime.
The sub-title of Powell’s book, “how to build a world where we all belong,” suggests to me that that there is “a world” that will encompass all of our different and diverse contemporary “worlds.” He also suggests that when we identify someone as an opponent, “we may miss the chance to get to being” (191). Well, when we get to “being,” would we agree that trans people have a right to medical care or that all immigrants deserve due process? If not, then why would I try to build bridges with those who deny the dignity of others?
A few years ago, I was sharing some ideas with a Black woman about our “common humanity.” She politely interrupted me and said, “We have a shared humanity, not a common humanity.” This may seem strange, especially at the beginning of our 250th year anniversary, when many will say that we are all “Americans.” Who will not be caught up in the “spirit of America”? Is there an American humanity? Or is there a shared humanity, still carried forward by the legacy of injustices
The cultural theorist, Sylvia Wynters, has proposed that we think of different “genres of being human,” because, she argues, we are “biological beings who can only experience ourselves as humans through the mediation of culture-specific masks” (link). If the bridging is beyond our culture-specific masks, and therefore beyond our humanity, then how can it promote a climate of justice in a climate of injustice?
So, is this the time for bridging? It depends on the reason for the bridges. Many of us witnessed one option when we watched Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration speech, in which he promises to lead “audaciously.” Although he is a charismatic speaker, he inspired his audiences with his proposals and policies. I see him as a fighter, who builds bridges for the sake of justice. Not a bad role model for the rest of us.