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
G
et
y
ou
r t
icke
ts
n
o
w
!
G
et
y
ou
r t
icke
ts
n
o
w
!
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