Reflections: Bridging & Belonging
In my 37 years, I have never felt the world so shaken. There is so much to do. To consider how best to do. And for whom. And for what. And with whom. And with what. So when I was given the opportunity to facilitate a discussion about bridging with Valarie Kaur, john a. powell, and Lucas Johnson, I didn’t hesitate. Which of their insights click most powerfully with where we are today? What fresh insights emerge when we spend 90 minutes going deep on it?
Building bridges between different people is critical and complicated. If you’re intrigued by the tension in that, I’d encourage you to watch the whole conversation. It’s worth it. And, to state the obvious, your ears will listen for the wisdom you’re after much better than mine could:
I’ve been thinking a lot about the challenges to bridging. There are so many reasons not to bother, or to think it will do no good. On that note, here are three bits of wisdom that are staying with me.
Resist being broken
john has a useful framework that offers an opposite of “breaking.” The world right now is scary and turbulent, and we can see the storm as a threat or an opportunity. If we see it as a threat, it leads us to “breaking” behaviors, which divide, isolate, and destroy. If we see it as an opportunity, it leads us to “bridging” behaviors, which heal, support, and create.
In this framework, the three people in this conversation practice and champion bridging — not as a smiling, naive kumbaya, but as a long and uncomfortable labor, as Valarie puts it, that sees our honest pain and mess and looks for ways to work with it.
So I asked Lucas: What was the moment that made you commit to bridging over breaking? And he replied, in part, by pushing back on an assumption in the question. It’s not that he chose bridging over breaking, he said. As a kid it was easy for him to see the whole world connected. It’s more that he resisted a pull toward breaking as he grew up and the world tempted him with divisions he refused to accept.
Build small bridges
One of the strongest objections to bringing people together is that some of us are just too awful, harmful, or evil to connect with. There’s no doubt in my mind that some ideas are irredeemably toxic. If the people who entertain those ideas are also irredeemably toxic, then we are justified in breaking ties wherever we see the seeds of evil ideas, and in suspecting anyone who would want to build bridges there.
“Should I reach out to the devil?” is a good question for anyone who champions bridging as a boundless principle. In response, john gives a practical answer: Don’t start there. Start with small bridges, he says. In a world scarred by divisions, it’s enough.
Bridge in community
We’re neither saints nor robots, and building bridges to people who hurt us feels like the worst idea, especially when we’re tending to the wound, or still have their knee on our necks. Valarie has a hell of a story on this. After 9/11, a friend of her family’s was murdered outside a gas station. Balbir Singh Sodhi was Sikh, like her, and his murder set her on a mission to fight hate through activism.
Much later, she joined Balbir’s brother, Rana, on a phone call to Balbir’s killer, Frank Roque, in prison. Frank made a remorseless statement early in the conversation, which filled Valarie with rage. Meanwhile, Rana pulled on a thread in Frank’s words that led him to apologize for the horrible thing he’d done. “Because I could rage, Rana could bridge,” Valarie said.
The biggest bridges can’t be left to each individual person. They also can’t be rushed. It took 15 years for Valarie to want to make that phone call. And she’s grateful she didn’t do it alone.
Mónica Guzmán is a Seattle-based journalist and entrepreneur who lives for good conversation sparked by challenging questions. She’s cofounder of The Evergrey, an advisor to Braver Angels and Together Washington, and the author of an upcoming guide to staying curious in wildly divided times. Join her in reclaiming your curiosity at http://bit.ly/reclaimcuriosity.
