Best Self Magazine

Building Bridges of Understanding One Question (and Answer) at a Time

Building Bridges of Understanding One Question (and Answer) at a Time by Merilyn Berlin Snell. Photograph of a question mark sign with lights by Jon Tyson
Photograph by Jon Tyson

Question Bridge White Women, a social experiment, seeks to bridge the gap between the diversity of thought in one demographic, white women — and to initiate honest civil discourse

A question is a powerful thing, a mighty use of words.

~ Krista Tippett

In an age of competing certainties, where we are both more interconnected than ever but also more polarized — how do we build bridges of understanding across the great divides of race, politics, class, and religion?

If you ask Taylor Swift, she’ll counsel us all to just, “Calm Down,” which isn’t bad advice (it’s also a great song and video). But there’s a more active and engaged response, and it’s embedded in the very structure of an ongoing multi-year transmedia project I’m a part of called, Question Bridge: White Women in America.

White women are not often asked how their skin color frees or confines them.

What does it mean to be a white woman in America today? What gives us hope? What keeps us up at night? How do we feel about the state of our bodies, our lives, our families, our communities, our nation, and the planet?

The project aims to help shape a civil national conversation,

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