S T A T E M E N T
Several
years
ago
in
an
Advanced Placement Language
and Composition class, I read
“Language in Thought and Action”
by S.I. Hayakawa. Most of the
book’s contents have admittedly
slipped my mind, but one topic
that has stuck with me is the
difference between denotation and
connotation. While a dictionary
may denote the meaning of a word,
our own connotations can lead to
miscommunication. I think about
this theory more today than I ever
did in high school, especially when
it comes to political buzzwords.
Such a thought struck me as
of late when scrolling through
Twitter. On Monday, Jan. 23, the
M&M’s brand released a statement
claiming that after unintentionally
“polarizing” the country, they have
decided to pause the spokescandies
advertising campaign and have
actress Maya Rudolph take over
brand representation in place of
the candies. This decision was
prompted after outrage centering
on the campaign’s redesign — one
consisting of minimal changes
such as swapping the footwear
of the brown and green female
M&Ms.
Whether
for
genuine
anger or a bizarre cash grab, Fox
News’
political
commentator
Tucker
Carlson,
argued
that
“M&M’s will not be satisfied until
every last cartoon character is
deeply unappealing and totally
androgynous.”
While there was some confusion
over whether this announcement
was genuine when it was first
released, M&Ms has evidently
made the retirement into a gag.
M&Ms Twitter now says Ma&Ya’s,
with Rudolph’s face plastered
across a yellow M&M.
But, what sparked the M&M
brand into such controversy in the
first place? It wasn’t just Tucker
Carlson’s comments that led to this
animosity. It was one, magic word:
woke.
The
word
originates
from
African
American
Vernacular
English, one of many English
dialects
recognized
by
both
linguists
and
social
justice
advocates.
Merriam-Webster
defines woke as “aware of and
actively attentive to important
facts and issues, especially issues of
racial and social justice.” The term
gained particular significance in
our current social context as a
key slogan for Black Lives Matter,
appearing in popular media as the
“Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter
Movement” documentary and the
book “Stay Woke: A People’s Guide
to Making All Black Lives Matter.”
Words change naturally over
time, and recent adoptions of the
term “woke” have resulted in
new connotations of the word. As
recognition of the term increased,
“woke” was subjected to criticism
on mainstream platforms. Hulu’s
aptly-named
original
comedy,
“Woke,” follows an activist “in a
world where ‘woke’ has become
big business.” One “Saturday Night
Live” skit, Levi’s Wokes, parodied
the term with “sizeless, style-
neutral, gender non-conforming
denim for a generation that defies
labels.” Hulu and “SNL’s” intended
targets were brands capitalizing on
social justice movements, but their
representations put wokeness as a
whole in a negative light; instead of
just blaming business, woke became
synonymous with performative
activism.
This
connotation
of
performative
activism,
coupled
with rising conversations over the
role of cancel culture in our current
socio-political climate, opened a
window for a complete takeover of
the term.
Fox News released their own
definition of the term, adding that
“in addition to meaning aware
and progressive, many people now
interpret ‘woke’ to be a way to
describe people who would rather
silence their critics than listen to
them.” To me, the word interpret
is key.
In reality, Fox News’ definition
of the term is inconsistent with
the current political climate. Aside
from the M&M’s controversy, other
“woke” media includes the “Game
of
Thrones”
prequel,
“House
of the Dragon” for discussing
gender roles, Victoria’s Secret for
expanding their body inclusivity
and James Bond’s finale “No Time
To Die” for portraying 007 and Q
as Black and queer, respectively.
The anti-woke crowd also tries to
link these examples to a failure in
the market, in order to justify their
ridicule and prove that diversity is
unappealing.
The disconnect between the
new connotations of wokeness and
the efforts to quell progressive —
or simply diverse — content is not
irony, but rather a misinformation
campaign that goes beyond the
absurdities
of
M&M’s
sexualization.
Online culture wars and rage-
baiting can be easily dismissed
ELIZABETH WOLFE
Statement Columnist
The anti-woke hoax
Design by Sara Fang
Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Wednesday, February 1, 2023— 7
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
There’s an image of space
that
they
call
“Pillars
of
Creation.” It looks like the
hand of a god. Your eye traces
the forearm of gas coagulating
into amorphous peaks of cotton
candy space dust. Spectral,
gargantuan,
ghostly,
divine.
Solid as rock, but with the
opacity of dissipating fog. It
stands in your mind’s eye,
perpetually reaching, fingers
poised with a cold disposition
and ready to wrap themselves
around an unseen victim. What
is it creating? Fear? Awe?
This
entity
is
formally
known as the Eagle nebula,
so by definition, it’s creating
stars,
though
it’s
hard
to
imagine how any additional
stars could possibly fit into
the
already-supersaturated
sky. Like veins under skin, the
nebula can’t obscure the light
of thousands upon thousands of
glowing bulbs from pinpricks to
spotlights, specks of glitter to
chunks of diamond. They call it
outer space, but the population
of stars in this view looking
out from Earth makes the
space between feel full. Surely
the sheer mass of more would
collapse into a black hole.
***
When I was in fourth grade,
I went to a park to watch Venus
upstage the sun.
A local astronomy club had
set up telescopes at the top
of a dune on the coast of Lake
Michigan to watch the transit
of Venus, an event that happens
twice, eight years apart, and
then waits about 121 years to
cycle again. The transit of a
planet occurs when its orbit
falls between the Earth and
the Sun. If, during a transit, we
dare to gaze up from our mossy
rock at the star we’re told never
to make eye contact with, this
celestial event lets us see the
journey of a dark speck against
a backdrop of blazing fire. From
where I was peering through
the telescope, it looked like a
lame shadow puppet but, in that
moment, my 11-year-old self felt
like it was the coolest thing I
would ever see.
My fascination with celestial
events began on the top of
this little midwestern hill. My
formative years were speckled
with
meteor
showers
on
beaches, shooting stars in the
dead of night and the smudge
of comets lighting up the vast
upper peninsula sky.
Meteor
showers,
shooting
stars,
solar
eclipses,
constellations,
nebulas,
planets, stars, general cosmic
anomalies. Why look up at
these things?
Thinking back on all my
memories
forces
me,
once
again, into the mystique of the
night sky that once swept me
off my feet. Space has a way
of captivating us in a way that
feels irresistible. And I barely
even know what it looks like.
Our imaginations have to work
overtime to make the idea of
the spectacle match the reality
of what can be seen.
In fact, if it weren’t for the
Hubble Space Telescope, I’d
be left with only imagination
to visualize the exceptional
images
hidden
within
the
darkness of space. When Hubble
launched in the ‘90s, it became
a household name as the first
optical telescope of such caliber
in space and collected images
fully unobscured by the Earth’s
atmosphere.
Hubble was only expected to
have a lifespan of 15 years but,
with the help of some upgrades,
the telescope is still collecting
data today. While it’s been truly
invaluable to our understanding
of the universe, what if I told
you that a new telescope was
launched into operation in the
past year — the successor to
Hubble and a device even more
capable than this revolutionary
spyglass?
“Liftoff.
From
a
tropical
rainforest to the edge of time
itself, James Webb begins a
voyage back to the birth of
the universe.” These are the
words that were spoken by
Rob Navias, Spokesman for the
Johnson Space Center, as the
James Webb Space Telescope
was hurled into the largest void
known to humankind to rest
about one million miles away
from Earth. Within the last
year, the JWST has allowed us
to peer into the universe in a
way that hasn’t been possible
before. And let me tell you,
when he says “the edge of time
itself,” he really means it.
The speed at which light
travels is not a concept we really
think about in our everyday
lives. The light we perceive on
the regular is so instantaneous,
we
don’t
imagine
it
as
something that moves. Light
reaches, say, an apple. Some
of the light is absorbed by that
apple, and some of the light
is reflected off of that apple.
The reflected light of the red
apple is what reaches our eyes.
We look at the fruit, and we
essentially see it as an apple in
the present moment.
Conversely, the light of stars
that we observe in the sky is
reaching us from thousands of
light years away. When we look
up, we don’t see stars as they
are right now, we see them as
they were thousands of years
ago. There could be stars that
have died out, that no longer
shine in the present moment,
but their light takes so long to
get to Earth that we can still see
it as if nothing has happened.
The stars I saw in middle
school from atop an eroding
dune — millions of them could
have been dead. The farther
away an object is from Earth,
and the further the light of the
object is required to travel, the
further back in time we are able
to see. The JWST was designed
in part to detect the farthest
and faintest of light and allow
us to see as far into the past as
we dare to go.
One of the first images taken
in 2022 by the JWST, shown
below, was a deep field image
pointed at a galaxy cluster.
Every speck of light in this
image that lacks a six-point
lens flare is a galaxy, experts
say. While the sheer amount
of galaxies observable from
one angle is certainly jaw
dropping, the most exciting
part of this image is where the
light appears to be warping in
the middle. That’s a particular
galaxy cluster that the JWST
is concerned with focusing on
with this image, and this cluster
is bending the light of galaxies
behind them in a naturally
occurring phenomenon known
as gravitational lensing. These
galaxies in the cluster have
a
gravitational
field
that’s
powerful enough to basically
act
as
celestial
binoculars.
Webb
is
a
human-made
telescope pointed at a universe-
made telescope pointed at the
earliest known visible galaxies,
existing in a time when the
universe was at its beginnings.
While I hate to devalue the
awe-factor of these photos,
I have a duty to clarify some
things: Not everything about
the telescope pictures are real.
Even the NASA photos are an
exercise in imagination. While
it’s most definitely not an
amateur art project, the photos
we receive from the telescopes
are black and white. Then,
they’re systematically color-
coded by scientists in a way
that is entirely based on the
data in the photo. The color-
filled wonderland that we think
of when we imagine space,
popularized by Hubble and now
being enhanced by the JWST,
is just an interpretation of very
real
scientific
information.
Until we can leave the planet
and travel light years away in
our own sci-fi spacecraft to see
galaxies with our own eyes,
humanity may never know the
truth of what sights there are to
behold.
As I sit in a crowded coffee
shop here on Earth, scrolling
through the Webb’s images,
the figures of sparkling nebulas
and galaxies are so beautiful I
think to myself, this can’t be
real. I’m struck by a feeling I
can’t quite put into words, as I
try to put it into words anyway.
Awe, maybe. My breath feels
thoroughly taken. An image
from this telescope is like an
uppercut to the brain. It makes
me feel small, but in a good way,
if that makes sense. We are
the bacteria culture on an agar
plate sitting on the universe’s
counter.
While
these
images
demonstrate the significance
and beauty of space exploration,
I wonder if looking up is a
privilege humanity can’t afford
right now. NASA has made
promises to get humans to Mars
by 2033, nearly 10 years from the
time I write this. Billionaires
spend chump change on space
missions and talk about their
plans to reach Mars like it’s
their summer vacation idea.
Elon Musk thinks he’s getting
a crew to Mars in 2029. It’s
a cool idea, but our Earth is
dying. Should we be looking at
another planet before we really
take a long and hard look at
our own? Sometimes looking at
outer space feels like escapism
— a way to cope when looking
directly at Earth and humanity
feels a bit unbearable.
I want to look up at space and
be filled with hope, awe, wonder
and mystery. The JWST is
giving that feeling to the world.
It’s already providing incredible
data for astronomers to help
figure out the extraterrestrial
piece of life’s greatest puzzle:
Why are we here? I just hope
we continue to look at our own
planet with the same reverence.
I hope we don’t get so swept
up in the world beyond that we
forget where our own two feet
are planted.
But maybe I’m getting a
bit ahead of myself. No one is
traveling to Mars yet. Light
travel still isn’t possible. For
now, I sit at the edge of my seat
as history unfolds with every
spectacular new image released
from the greatest telescope
humanity has ever seen.
DANI CANAN
Statement Correspondent
James Webb and the direction of the
human gaze
Design by Francie Ahrens