Cognotes 2017 Annual Conference Highlights - 7

2017 CHICAGO HIGHLIGHTS

COGNOTES

ALAANNUAL.ORG/MOBILE-APP|#ALAAC17

7

Braving the Wilderness: Soft Front, Strong Back, Wild Heart
Kelcey Stewart/Clarion University of Pennsylvania

O

Bestselling author Dr. Brené Brown helped the audience find commonality.

n June 25, Dr. Brené Brown delivered "Braving the Wilderness:
The Quest for True Belonging
& The Courage to Stand Alone," also the
title of her new book to be released in Fall
2017. Brown has spent the past 15 years
studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and
empathy. With over 25 million views, her
TED talk, "The Power of Vulnerability," is
one of the top five most-viewed TED talks
in the world.
While speaking on belonging and togetherness, Brown had the audience stand together and sing along with a clip from "American
Pie" by Don McLean. This showed that
though we are all strangers and alone in the
wilderness, when we band together we have
more in common than we think.
Brown introduced Four Practices of True
Belonging, her advice on how to find belonging within yourself, rather from others:
People are hard to hate close up. Move
in. "Hating is too big of a price to pay for

us individually," she said. People are quick
to judge others from afar, based only on
their looks. Instead, move in and try to learn
something before you show hate.
Speak truth to bullshit. Be civil. "When
we attack someone's humanity, we're saying
nothing about them and everything about
us," Brown continued. When someone is
wrongly accusing you of something, speak
out about the truth, but be civil.
Hold hands. With strangers. Brown
stressed, "Shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers, we're reminded we are part of something
far bigger than us." When something hard
happens to you, the only people around to
give you comfort may be complete strangers;
we just need to put our differences aside and
lift each other up.
Soft front. Strong back. Wild heart. Be
kind when talking to others, be open and
civil, but never forget your purpose and
beliefs. Be strong when standing up for
yourself and continue to advance in your
crusade. Your heart is forever marked by the
wild. "I am the wilderness," closed Brown.

Lead with Love, Despite Harrowing History
"What world do we
want to live in? What
ive every day leading with love. kind of people do we
That was the message that Sandra
want to be?"

By Stephanie Barnaby, San Jose State University

L

Uwiringiyimana reiterated while
telling her harrowing tale of fleeing the
Democratic Republic of the Congo and
resettling in the United States after living in
a Burundi refugee camp. As a 23 year old,
Uwiringiyimana has experienced much in
her young life that could lead someone to
be bitter and filled with hate. With a smile
on her face, Uwiringiyimana emphasized
instead the joys and kind generous spirit of
her childhood home and parents in Congo.
Appreciating and seeking that kindness, she
believes it is fundamental to her being the
person she is today.
While growing up, Uwiringiyimana heard
bombs exploding in the distance from her
school room and saw her first dead body in
the third grade. The final time she fled Congo,
she was 10 years old. The 1994 Rwandan
genocide led people in Congo to see Tutsis
as targets. In addition, any tribe that could be
likened to the Tutsis, such as Uwiringiyimana's
tribe, became targets of vitriol and violence.
This led her family to flee to a refugee camp.

The refugee camp and, by default, the
refugee experience, Uwiringiyimana described
as incredibly dehumanizing. Kept in a remote
area without access to the cities or other people
and being forced to beg for food, she felt like
refugees were "the scraps of humanity." The
average time spent in a refugee camp is 20
years; a startling fact that drives home the
importance of understanding the refugee
experience.
In August of 2004 the camp was attacked.
Uwiringiyimana's aunt and sister both died in
the attack and her mother was shot. She was
spared by the attacker, and after reuniting with
her mother they fled the camp and resettled
to the United States. Uwiringiyimana said
as hard as the refugee experience was it was
even harder to be in a place where she felt
unwelcome. She was surprised to discover
that she was black and while trying to fit into
the private school she attended she looked to
television to see what it meant to be black in

America. It didn't matter how she felt; the
world saw a black girl when they looked at her.
Her recounting of the feelings she experienced as she heard about the shooting of
Trayvon Martin led her to see how important
it was to be politically active and to be proud

of who she is. Uwiringiyimana said, "We are
so much more connected than we think." She
urged everyone to consider, "What world do
we want to live in? What kind of people do
we want to be?"

Gale Primary Sources
Start at the source.

WOMEN'S STUDY ARCHIVE:

WITNESS THE MARCH
TOWARD WOMEN'S RIGHTS
Women's Issues and Identities. This new archive traces the path of
women's issues from past to present-pulling primary sources from
manuscripts, newspapers, periodicals, and more.
Learn more at gale.com/WomensStudies.

How Dare the Sun Rise Author Values Connection

America. Characterized by crime and danger,
the black community she saw on television
was scary and she wondered why those were
the only representations she saw. She realized when she found her way to the African

EMPOWER™ RE S E ARC H
© 2017. Gale, a Cengage Company, is a registered trademark used herein under license. GCT17174700 3/17


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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Cognotes 2017 Annual Conference Highlights

Cognotes 2017 Annual Conference Highlights - 1
Cognotes 2017 Annual Conference Highlights - 2
Cognotes 2017 Annual Conference Highlights - 3
Cognotes 2017 Annual Conference Highlights - 4
Cognotes 2017 Annual Conference Highlights - 5
Cognotes 2017 Annual Conference Highlights - 6
Cognotes 2017 Annual Conference Highlights - 7
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Cognotes 2017 Annual Conference Highlights - 12
Cognotes 2017 Annual Conference Highlights - 13
Cognotes 2017 Annual Conference Highlights - 14
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