We don’t want to live in a society in turmoil. In the US, 93 percent of people want to reduce divisiveness, and 86 percent believe it’s possible to disagree in a healthy way. Yet with increasing political and social fragmentation, many of us don’t know how to move past our differences. Civil rights scholar john a. powell presents an actionable path through “bridging” that helps us communicate, coexist, and imagine a new story for our shared future where we all belong.

Edited and developed with the Othering & Belonging Institute’s Rachelle Galloway-Popotas, powell’s research-backed guide offers a framework for building cohesion and solidarity between disparate beliefs and groups. He defines key concepts such as “othering,” which primes us to see people as a threat; “breaking,” which excludes people or sees them as threatening our belonging; and finally “bridging,” which fosters acceptance both of those we might have othered and even aspects of ourselves. He shares personal reflections as well as practices to help you begin bridging wherever you are — in your community, friendships, family, workplace, and even those with whom you might never have imagined you could find common ground. He calls upon us not just to engage with bridging but to become bridgers.

The following sections are excerpted from the first chapter of “The Power of Bridging: How To Build A World Where We All Belong” by john a. powell (December 2024). Reprinted with permission from Sounds True. The full chapter is available on the Othering & Belonging Institute website. Read a Q&A with powell about the book here.

Bridging to the Future

This book is about four key concepts paired in tension with each other: belonging and bridging and othering and breaking. I’ll go into much greater detail to define each of these and how they are interrelated, but let me offer some brief introductions now to what I mean by these four words.

I believe many of our most vexing social problems share a com­mon structure that is not often revealed when we are just looking at single issues. I believe that the concept of othering, or seeing people not only as different but as less deserving and not of equal dignity as us, allows us to more clearly perceive the underlying structure of many of the problems we are facing, whether we call those problems racism, nationalism, homophobia, or cancel culture.

Breaking is othering in action. When we engage in breaking, we deny the full stories, complexities, and even sometimes the humanity of those we consider other.

Breaking is othering in action. When we engage in breaking, we deny the full stories, complexities, and even sometimes the humanity of those we consider other. Their suffering does not count as much as ours. While othering is about one’s status in relationship to different groups, breaking is the practice that undergirds othering.

The solutions that I want to offer to othering and breaking are belonging and bridging. 

Belonging serves as an aspiration and orientation in the world. A world built on belonging means one must have what is necessary to cocreate and participate in making the world one lives in. Belonging means agency for all members of society. It is closely associated with dignity and being seen. While in a sense we already belong, it is still important that we are acknowledged as belonging and that we acknowledge the belonging of others.

At a foundational, and I would say spiritual, level, belonging also means that there is no other. Whose life is unimportant? Who does not matter? Show me the person not made of stardust. Not only do we all count, but we are all connected. We all belong.

Who does not matter? Show me the person not made of stardust. Not only do we all count, but we are all connected. We all belong.

And yet that is not our daily experience. We are situated differ­ently from others. We see the world differently from others. How am I to be my brother’s and sister’s keeper when they see the world so differently than I do? Maybe they even reject the idea that they are my brother or sister. There are many practices, like in my father’s church, willing to embrace the notion that all the members belong but not the nonmembers — not the Chinese people, or the eleven­ year-old who questioned the rules of belonging. Othering may seem natural and even inevitable. It is neither. But we must do something in a world where we practice not seeing the humanity in the other.

This is where bridging comes in.

Bridging is both a practice and a position. “Can I become a bridge?” I may ask myself. And this immediately calls up other questions­ — “Do I want to bridge?” Or “Why should I?”

By definition, if someone is other, there is apparently a distance between us. Why don’t I just leave it at that? Maybe they are more than different — maybe they are a threat. Should I bridge or should I protect myself from this other?

We live in a world full of fractures and one where polarization, division from one another, and isolating ourselves are becoming increasingly normalized. We live in a world where fear is often more visible than love or hope.

But it does not have to be that way. In our effort to protect our­selves in what feels like a dystopian world, to close ourselves off from one another, we are likely to inflict even more pain and add fuel to the fire of the very world we want to avoid.

In our effort to protect our­selves in what feels like a dystopian world, to close ourselves off from one another, we are likely to inflict even more pain and add fuel to the fire of the very world we want to avoid.

This book suggests there is another way. This book hopes to acknowledge and reclaim our ability to see one another. And to live with one another.

Where there is an apparent other, there is the need to explore how to bridge. This book is about belonging without othering despite the claim that the world demands something else. This book is an invitation to reject a future organized around fear and death, and instead to organize and call into being a world where we recog­nize and live into our connection with one another, the earth, and ourselves. It is known that we share much DNA with apes. What is less discussed is that we also share DNA with all of life. To live into this reality of interbeing is the challenge.

This is not an easy task, and there will be many reasons to think and do otherwise. And yet, life demands life, and I believe bridging is one of our most important ways to see and celebrate one another and ourselves.

…

The Urgency of Bridging

Why do I believe (and I do believe) this work of bridging is urgent? Because we are living right now in a world where there is a great deal of fragmentation. This is often framed as polarization and sometimes as isolation, or both. While these three dynamics are related, I believe fragmentation is a better way of understanding and addressing our current state.

Polarization is usually defined by two sides diverging in roughly symmetrical ways, with the implication being that to solve polariza­tion everyone can moderate their positions and meet in a perceived middle. That may sound appealing, but often it is not the correct solution. What about a case where one side embraces steps to avert impending disaster while the other is not only entrenched in inaction but denies there is even an issue? Not all instances of groups diverging should or even can be resolved by negotiating a middle position.

I prefer the term fragmentation to describe the widespread dynamic of retreat into groups that are mutually averse to and distrustful of each other. To address fragmentation, we must also understand and address power and contexts of different groups, while at the same time anchoring our efforts in values that include all people.

Social division, fragmentation, and isolation are all global issues and are a threat to the health of democracy and the planet. We should be careful in both analysis and language about them. (I write more about fragmentation in the book Racing to Justice.)

Fragmentation and distrust are on the rise. In the US, the gap between how positively individuals feel toward others of their own political party versus members of the opposing political party has grown steadily since the early 1990s. By 2020, animosity toward the opposing political party was at its highest point in decades, as mea­sured by a public opinion survey tool called the “feeling thermometer,” which asks Americans to rate how warm or cold they feel toward dif­ferent groups, including those in different political parties.

The less we meaningfully interact across differences — the less we stay open to bridging — the more likely that such stories become a reality.

In 2022, an NBC News survey showed that 80 percent of peo­ple with political affiliations believed the other party “poses a threat that if not stopped will destroy America as we know it.” This was shown to be in part because Americans exaggerate how different they are from supporters of the other party, and therefore they carry in their heads distorted and flattened stories of one another. The less we meaningfully interact across differences — the less we stay open to bridging — the more likely that such stories become a reality.

There is distrust not just of the apparent other but of each other, even those we may think of as members of our group. This is some­ times expressed in terms of social isolation and loneliness. The British government noted loneliness as a national problem and appointed a minister of loneliness to help address it. The US Surgeon General has issued warnings that we are in an epidemic of loneliness.

People are experiencing not just increased loneliness but also anger, hopelessness, and little faith in institutions. A 2023 survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found that more than three-quarters of Americans believe that our democracy is at risk in the 2024 US presidential election. And 38 percent agreed with the statement that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,” the highest rate of support for political violence in the eight surveys PRRI has conducted since 2021.

All over the world, an increasing number of people are facing the future with a mix of anxiety, fear, and trepidation. These feelings are a breeding ground for authoritarianism and worse. Peace-building organizations globally are being challenged to reconsider their values and their approach as wars in Ukraine, Sudan, and Gaza rage on. Even those who may conceptually support building bridges between different groups worry it may be a luxury we cannot afford in this environment.

So why are war and othering increasing now, and why all over the world?

One reason is because the world is changing rapidly, and rapid change puts us under enormous pressure, straining our ability to adapt. Today’s accelerated changes are happening across critical areas that have enormous impact on all of us — climate crisis, technological advances, economic shifts, the COVID pandemic, and altering demo­graphics all portend a different world. The speed of these changes will not likely slow down.

These dynamics are raising Darwinian narratives, such as who will survive and who will fit in this emerging new world. While the reference to Darwin might seem abstract, the experience is anything but. We frequently respond to the challenge of change by finding a target to assuage our anxiety. And too often that target becomes the other. It can be the racial other, the immigrant other, the trans other. As Darwin discussed survival of the fittest, he appeared to be discuss­ing traits and species. The application and use in social discourse may not align completely with Darwinian theory of the survival of the fittest, but that will not likely have much impact on either the discus­sion or the underlying anxiety.

The changes may be scary, or they may be something we believe we want. But they all point to a world where we will all be called upon to change. What is most fearful is the possibility that my group, and I, will not belong in this new world.

There are indeed changes coming. The future, somewhat like the past, is complex, only more so. The changes may be scary, or they may be something we believe we want. But they all point to a world where we will all be called upon to change. What is most fearful is the possibility that my group, and I, will not belong in this new world.

Even if we don’t want to change, change is inevitable. It might be good, bad, both, and neither. But life does not exist without change. The change could be slow enough that we don’t notice it, but when change is too fast, it may appear to threaten our current way of being. Our sense of threat may feel even more troubling when we begin to allow the belief that the unwelcome change is being caused by an other.

People are navigating these changes without much help from lead­ers and without stories that can support them in meeting the moment with something other than fear. Changing US immigration policies or leaving the European Union is not likely to address the issue of cli­mate or demographic changes. And people are not likely to invest in serious solutions for any number of causes unless such solutions speak to some real concerns that impact their daily lives. The energy we see around book bans in schools suggests that it might be easier to get people excited about what their children are reading or not reading than about issues like climate change or artificial intelligence, which might feel more removed and abstract.

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.

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.

Bridging is a powerful way to address fragmentation and create a shared story for our future. I believe understanding the threats of othering and the orientation of belonging will help us meet the future with the urgency we need.