Are you sure you wanna read 
this? Are you absolutely sure 
devoting your undivided attention 
to these next 2,000 words is worth 
your precious time? Cause for 
Christ’s sake, there’s laundry to be 
done! Assigned readings, hoards 
of homework to complete and 
you might work soon, have plans 
at noon, need to leave in 20 cause 
you gotta go to the gym, or go meet 
up with him, her, them, and then, 
there’s probably a couple hundred 
other unfinished tasks to still ful-
fill in the back of your mind, while 
time obstinately unwinds as you 
find yourself slowly itching to 
close this tab, turn from this page, 

and now, move on quickly before 
you miss out!
Yeah. We’re all familiar with 
FOMO, aka the fear of missing 
out. We tend to associate it with 
social occasions, seeing it often 
as the occasional missing out on 
a party, performance, club, con-
cert, family event or function. In 
reality, however, our feelings of 
FOMO are much more ingrained, 
much more deeply felt day-to-day 
in a collective culture whose base-
line behavior operates from fear. 
We might feel the fear of missing 
out from missing a single class of 
a course, missing a single workout 
during a week, missing a shift of 
work, a deadline, any and every 
affair where we feel like our pres-
ence is better suited in an other 
“there” than wherever we are in 

the moment. 
Death is at the crux of every 
fear, rearing its wicked head, lead-
ing me to believe that our culture’s 
falsely construed fixation on the 
fear of missing out is most closely 
tied to our intertwining fear(s) 
of biological and socio-cultural 
death. Our increasing seculariza-
tion has taught us to fear death as 
a result of our ongoing after-life 
apathy. Now, every instance of iso-
lation is an evanescent eviscera-
tion. Paralyzed by the possibility 
that the world can — no — that 
the world will go on without us, 
our egoistic desire to be important 
impedes 
the 
all-encompassing 
realization of our impermanence. 
And it is absolutely egoistic, this 
desire, that damns us to a world of 
perpetual haste, unrelenting wor-

ries about time “wasted,” compul-
sively primed social media usage 
and the constant idea that we 
should be doing some thing, some 
where, elsewhere, always.
We think, if I don’t do this, how 
else will people know I exist? 
How else will they know I mat-
ter? And if I don’t matter to oth-
ers, do I even matter at all? All our 
separating, individualizing ego 
leaves us to do is chase so chroni-
cally an everlasting differentiation 
from others. Earnestly, we draw 
upon the energy of Else, errone-
ously inflating our sense of Self. 
Without a firm solid grounding 
in Spirit, we sprint to evaluate our 
worth via others ofttimes through 
the nescient, worldly lens of nor-
mativity. So similar is the theory 
of the looking-ass, sorry, looking-

glass self in which we tend to base 
our sense of self on the perception 
of others. Our current collective 
spiritual deficiency makes it dif-
ficult for us to be alone, to resist 
the lure of our feeble vices, of our 
phones and electronic devices, 
since when left to our own (ana-
log) devices, we are, now, ruth-
lessly unable to recognize the 
abundant Source endowed within 
us by our Creator. 
Should we tap into our Creative 
power and opt to operate not from 
worldly timelines of lack, pain and 
fear, but instead, from a flowing, 
ever-presencing meeting of the 
moment, then we would more 
keenly know, feel and re-call our 
divinity on the daily, our arriving 
towards destiny and the revolving 
remembrance that every minute is 

alive with meaning, purpose and 
prosperity. 
It is this knowing as feeling 
through re-calling allowing us 
to realize that there is, in fact, an 
abundance of joys to missing out — 
since in reality, we are never miss-
ing out — in the moment. In the 
moment, at this moment, we are 
all always arriving at our destina-
tion, on the path toward collec-
tive liberation, transcendence and 
oneness. We may take detours as 
the damning dictates of late-stage 
capitalism may curtail. Neverthe-
less, every single one of us, by vir-
tue of being alive, is — more or less 
— righteously moving along on the 
way to our final destiny. 
This is why the fear of miss-

Michigan in Color
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
In Solidarity with the Black Student Union: “More Than Four” 
 
and the fight for Equity

On Tuesday night, posters read-
ing “Care about Black students?” 
were thrown onto the concrete 
throughout the University of Michi-
gan’s Central Campus. Mere hours 
after an emotionally powerful and 
unifying gathering of Black U-M 
students in support of radically chal-
lenging the University’s policies and 
handling of the Black experience, 
the Black student body is reminded 
of the University’s true disposition: 
one of disregard, disrespect and out-
right rejection. That an anonymous 
member of the community felt it an 
appropriate representation of the 
campus to vandalize protest mate-
rial suggests a campus-wide tacit 
approval of systemic silencing.
On Nov. 1, the Black Student 
Union at the University of Michi-
gan published their list of urgent 
demands for the University of Mich-
igan President and Board of Regents. 
Titled “More Than Four,” the docu-
ment outlines the organization’s 

current political platform, which 
is focused on unilaterally improv-
ing the status of Black students at 
the University. The BSU also orga-
nized a public address at which the 
demands were read to the student 
body on the steps of the Hatcher 
Graduate Library. The posting of the 
platform on social media was met 
with a positive response, and the 
address drew a crowd of BSU mem-
bers and allies alike.
“More Than Four” details a four-
point platform tasking the Univer-
sity and its administration with 
actionable items to combat issues 
faced by the Black student body. The 
platform identifies the following 
issues for the University to address:
1. 
Increasing 
Black 
Student 
Enrollment
2. Explicitly Combating Anti-
Blackness
3. Rectifying the structural flaws 
of DEI that systemically neglect 
Black students
4. The University’s Social Respon-
sibility to Invest in the Public Good 
Through K-12 Education
The BSU cites statistics from Uni-

versity studies in order to make their 
case, such as the stagnation of Black 
enrollment around 4.2% for the last 
decade (the administration having 
reneged on their half-century-old 
promise of 10% enrollment), and 
that Black students reported hav-
ing the worst campus experience 
among all social identities in 2017.
“For me, (the platform) means 
increasing equity and advancing 
social causes. Overall what we’re 
seeking is greater equity, not only 
within the walls of this institution 
but outside (as well),” Public Policy 
senior and BSU Speaker Kayla Tate 
(she/her) said. “The fourth tenet 
addresses that, and aims to cultivate 
a broader talent pool of competitive 
applicants who can attend this Uni-
versity.” 
Expanding upon that, LSA senior 
and BSU Programming co-chair 
Russell McIntosh (he/him) stated 
that the platform represents “an 
expectation of the University to 
confront its complicity in certain 
systems that have made (education) 
inequitable for Black students.” 
The address was prefaced by an 

hour of community discussion at 
the Trotter Multicultural Center, 
where members of the BSU execu-
tive board briefed students in atten-
dance of the platform and then held 
an open dialogue. Students men-
tioned grievances that resonated 
with many in the room: the inad-
equacy of pre-college programs 
(Wolverine Pathways, for example) 
in terms of funding and securing 
enrollment, the lack of recruitment 

of diverse students or initiatives that 
increase the University’s exposure 
to underserved communities and 
an erasure of Black culture and 
activism on campus, to name a 
few. Students also reflected that 
Ann Arbor as a whole similarly 
does not reflect the state of Michi-
gan’s racial demographics, further 
ostracizing Black students and 
creating additional barriers for 
them to find community: whereas 

the state population is 14.1% Black, 
Ann Arbor is half of that at 7%. The 
BSU e-board stressed that, while 
the platform does provide some 
general 
recommendations 
for 
improving the campus climate, the 
onus of improvement lies squarely 
on the University and that it shoul-
ders the responsibility of living up 
to its own expectations and poli-
cies.
This is far from the first 
instance of the University being 
critiqued on its DEI programs 
and initiatives. After nearly two 
decades of Supreme Court chal-
lenges and a reversal of Michigan’s 
affirmative action policies, the 
University continues to struggle 
in cultivating a diverse campus 
through race-blind efforts alone. 
Citing difficulty in increasing the 
Black student population through 
metrics such as socioeconomic 
status, Michigan continues to hide 
behind the banning of affirmative 
action as the primary reason for a 
decrease in minority enrollment. 

CEDRIC MCCOY
MiC Columnist

Ankitha Donepudi/MiC

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SPOOKY 
SHOWINGS
at your LOCAL THEATERS!

Hocus Pocus October 23
COSTUME CONTEST

Wear your costumes and run amok! Dress up as your favorite character for a chance 
to win prizes at our pre-screening costume contest. (All ages)

Prizes Include: Theater Memberships, Movie Tickets, Concession Vouchers, & more!

Nosferatu October 30

LIVE ACCOMPANIMENT

Stephen Warner plays the historic Barton Organ 
during the film.

Rocky Horror Picture Show October 27

Shadow Cast

The Leather Medusas perform a live shadow cast 
during the film.

STATE THEATER
OPEN TUES - SUN
MICHIGAN THEATER
OPEN TUES + THURS - SUN

michtheater.org (734) 668-8397

Frankenstein October 31

Direct From London

Starring Benedict Cumberbatch 
and Jonny Lee Miller.

The joys of missing out

Wednesday, November 9, 2022 — 7

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

KARIS CLARK
MiC Columnist

