Student Submission

by Dylan Norman, Athena’s Student 

I took a psychology course through Athena’s, and my love of Psychology is one of the reasons I wrote this article.

I’m not a protestor. I’ve never even found great use in the art of protesting. Yet this year something changed, and everyone around me simultaneously became protestors, outside my house on the streets and inside my house, across social media. The cries of Black Lives Matter became more powerful as each new voice joined in and black people were killed across the country. I can recognize injustice when I see it, and soon images and stories of injustice flooded my life. One particular case, that of Ahmaud Arbery, was so chilling to me I was possessed to do a sketch of Mr. Arbery that, despite my lack of drawing prowess, I hoped could honor him in some way.

Within this mountain of justified activism and anger, there I was: a white, confused, and frustrated kid living in the small Californian town of Redwood City. I was assaulted on all sides by ideals, messages, and rage that had no unifying voice or plan. In other words, I was directionless, in some ways like the movement itself. So, what did I do?

I went to the police.

The police have gone from a glorified, justice-providing organization that we see in cop shows to a persona of the evil doers, racists preying on those below them. This change in the way the police are perceived made me wonder what they thought of all this, and what they thought (if anything) they had to change. I had heard the protestors, I had heard the politicians, but I had never heard from the villains of 2020.

Please don’t misunderstand. You may find the current state of the police to be at best an imperfect system, and at worst racked with racism and responsible for unwarranted deaths. Yet no matter where your beliefs lie, I still believe we should value discourse. Even if you don’t like the police, the police still have a valuable perspective on what can be improved. After all, how can an organization be improved if you don’t want to hear what that organization’s mindset is, or even if that organization has one unified mindset?

So, seeking out the Police perspective, I managed to organize an interview with the Redwood City Chief of Police Dan Mulholland. We had a long conversation, and though I wish I could share it all, I will have to summarize what I feel are the most interesting parts. First of all, I asked Chief Mulholland what he believed the role of Police was?

He believed that the Police’s role is to enforce laws while operating within certain parameters, to support communities, and to serve the state. In terms of community trust, Mulholland said it best: “If we don’t do that in a professional way, if we don’t do that in an appropriate way, if we don’t do that in an equal way, we do so at our own peril.” Chief Mulholland admits that many of the challenges police face are in many ways, as he said, “brought about by ourselves.” As Chief Mulholland puts it, it’s “okay to question what we do.”

One thing that bothered me was the lack of national standards. While Chief Mulholland explained the long list of training and vetting processes that go into being a police officer in Redwood City, as well as in California, there is a lack of this nationwide. Some people aren’t given enough training to be successful police officers, while others simply shouldn’t be police officers and due to poor vetting practices were allowed onto the force. Chief Mulholland seemed to suggest that some stations, like the one in Redwood City, are being smeared due to other station’s organizational culture, lack of training, recruiting protocol and vetting process. Chief Mulholland believes that Police, despite the anger against them, are for the most part living up to their role.

When asked about reforms, Chief Mulholland believes that police should listen to their community to learn what they can do to reform policies and to continually assess their stations. Nevertheless, there are some things Chief Mulholland believes the police can work on before even going to the community, such as de-escalation training. Chief Mulholland said that his officers are now focusing on slowing down dangerous situations in order to create time and response space. Sometimes it’s not always possible if the other person won’t work with police to slow down the encounter. The process of de-escalation is a tactic that is constantly improved upon, and Chief Mulholland suggested that his station continues to seek out ways to make de-escalation more effective.

Chief Mulholland also notes that personality comes into play in stressful and dangerous encounters. Perhaps the officer has an animated personality, they’re loud, or they’re alarmed easily, but regardless it can actually have the unintended effect of escalating a dangerous situation. The police are now taught in training what traits are valuable for de-escalation. A calm personality in particular has the best chance of achieving the desired results. It should be noted that while Chief Mulholland talked about the effectiveness of de-escalation, he also pointed out that it doesn’t always work, nor is it always applied. For example, it’s becoming acceptable for police to simply leave a situation if their presence is escalating it and there is no immediate danger to civilians. Chief Mulholland mentioned the police are looking towards other options and resources to improve their de-escalation tactics, and hopefully this will lead to a more peaceful way of approaching dangerous situations.

He also focused on the people within his police station being representative of the community they serve, saying that 82% to 86% of the people he has promoted to the rank of sergeant were either women, POC, LGBTQ, or a combination of those three. He stressed good leadership, paired with training, fair policy, and consequences for not meeting standards are all important in fostering an environment for Police to do their jobs justly.

The final thing that was mentioned was the implementation of body cameras. The Redwood City Police Department have been working on a system for body cameras, and they’ve already achieved written policy and attained federal funding. Apparently, even the Federal Department of Justice looked at the program and thought they had a model policy. The only thing that appears to be left is to actually implement the program. Once the program is implemented, Chief Mulholland hopes that it will win back the community’s trust in the police. When matters are disputed, there will be video evidence available. While Chief Mulholland focused on how civilians may act differently on camera, I also hope that body cameras will serve as a way to ensure that both police and civilians are behaving fairly and ethically.

My discussion with Chief Mulholland proved more interesting than I had ever expected. He had far more to share than I had expected, but I suppose I should have set my expectations higher to begin with. Chief Mulholland has a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, who has risen through the ranks to eventually become the Police Chief of an area with about 88,000 residents. Like many, he has a story and viewpoint worth sharing, but his seems forgotten. It’s extremely important to hear from POC voices, and listen to the stories they share. But at the same time, it’s also important to hear from everyone, so you can build a more complete understanding of any situation.

It’s difficult to try to find a voice or a story to share when you’re buried under thousands of others, all telling you what to or what not to believe. I’m a white kid. I haven’t dealt with racism, prejudice, or discrimination directly. But what I can do is find something to say, regardless of what I’ve experienced. Every voice is worth listening to whether you agree with it or not. I hope my fellow teenagers can learn the same thing I’ve learned during this long blur of a year: to find a voice, you have to listen first. We’re young, and at this point, it’s almost impossible for us to have a grasp on complex social issues like race in America. The more I learn about anything, the more I realize that I know less and less. There are no easy solutions and there are no simple truths because there is no easy problem. I often hear my friends sharing strong opinions that offer a simplified view. The unfortunate truth is that no one may ever fully understand an issue as complex as police reform, discrimination, and social justice, but at the very least we can try. So where do we start?

For me, the first step in understanding was to listen.

by Katie Felidaeneko, Athena’s Student

Plastic bags are very commonplace, but not just in stores. Outside in nature, these “urban tumbleweed” snag on tree branches, float through the ocean, blow across the ground, wash up on many beaches, and cause many problems. But what problems do they cause, besides being an eyesore? Are paper bags better? How can I help? All these questions, and more, are going to be answered in this essay.

Due to their light weight, plastic bags in landfills don’t always stay there. They frequently blow away in the wind, and into the rest of the world.

Runoff water collects and carries discarded plastic bags into storm drains. There, if they’re not washed out into rivers or oceans, they may clump with other trash to create a blockage. This often causes flooded roads, which can damage cars, buildings, and other property and collects pollutants and spreads them everywhere. It can also starve local wetlands, causing many plants and animals to die.

Especially when plastic bags are brightly colored, carry residue from food, or are animated by the movement of the water, animals frequently eat the plastic bags. Because plastic doesn’t break down very well in animal’s stomachs, the plastic bags can cause a deadly intestinal blockage or make them feel full while they starve or die from malnutrition. Animals can also be poisoned by chemicals used to create the bags or that the plastic absorbed on its way through the environment.

Plastic bags cause gargantuan problems for ocean animals. For instance, they can get entangled in them. Whales sometimes wash up on beaches after eating plastic bags. Sea turtles often mistake plastic bags for jellyfish. Another problem that might be even worse than the turtles killed directly from eating plastic bags is that when turtles eat them instead of food, their glucose levels drop, and they have less energy for migration and reproduction. Female sea turtles can’t lay as many eggs, and fewer hatchlings are born.

An estimated one million birds, 100,000 sea turtles, and countless other sea creatures die each year from ingesting plastic. In Midway Atoll, the home of the largest albatross colony on earth, thousands of albatross are found dead from eating plastic. Many animals already have many other pressures, whether they’re habitat destruction, poaching, climate change, the pet trade, or something else. Plastic adds yet another

Only a small percentage of plastic bags get recycled. Though some people try to reuse them, most get used only a single time. Many are thrown away, and many get into the environment.

In 2009, California stores had to provide plastic bag dropoff bins to collect bags for recycling Only 3% were collected. And even though recycling helps, plastic can only be recycled a finite number of times before it loses its tensile strength. Though we should still bring them back to the store for recycling, first we should get as much use out of them as possible.

While plastic bags are often used for only a short period of time, they can take hundreds of years to break down in a landfill (if they don’t just become microplastic.) I myself go to a 4-H gardening spin club. There, we put a plastic bag in a clear container with some compostable things – egg shells, a strip of newspaper, a banana peel. Everything else has almost or completely biodegraded. The plastic bag hasn’t changed a bit.

Here’s a bit of statistics for you. The average American goes through 6 plastic shopping bags a week. With a population of about 300 million, about 1.8 billion plastic bags are used and often discarded each week!

At this point you’re probably thinking, “Okay, then, I’ll go with the paper bags at the store, then,” or something like that. But paper bags are not a good alternative. They take more energy to produce, for instance. About 10 million paper bags are used each year, which means 14 million trees – one of the best climate change fighters in the world – are chopped down. From a more economic standpoint, paper bags cost more to produce than plastic bags. While more are recycled, still only about 50% are. Also, paper can take almost as long as plastic to break down. While paper is so much faster under ideal circumstances (as a passionate composter, I can testify to this), a landfill is far from ideal condition. Landfills lack air, light, and oxygen. Almost nothing decomposes.

However, there is a good option – a reusable cloth shopping bag. You can reuse them for years. They have a much smaller carbon footprint than plastic or paper bags that you use once. If they get dirty, you just need to wash them. (Be sure to wash them regularly to prevent food contamination.) They’re sturdier than plastic or paper bags, able to carry more weight. Often being bigger, they can carry more. If you’re crafty like I am, you can make a bunch, too!

I understand that it can be hard to remember to bring reusable bags to the store, so here are some tips. You can keep some reusable bags in your car, or put, “Bring reusable bags” at the top of your shopping list. Putting them in other obvious places, like by the door, can help too.

If you had, say, 2 bags and brought them to the store once, that’s 2 less plastic bags. If you bring them 2 times, that’s four less. Three times? That’s six less!

I read that an average american goes to the store 1.6 times each week. I’m going to round that to 2. There are 52 weeks in a year. That means that an average American goes to the store 104 times each year. If that person brought just 2 reusable shopping bags to the store every time that year, that’s 208 less shopping bags!

True, nobody’s going to remember to bring their reusable shopping bags to the store every time. But even one less plastic bag helps.

If everyone who read this tried to pick up a bag when they saw it and recycle it (dropping bags at a drop-off center or store is best so they don’t get entangled with other recycling) and bring one reusable bag to the store, it would help a lot. It’s unrealistic to hope that one day there won’t be any plastic bags littering the earth. But every time you help there’s another flicker of hope that maybe one day, only one or two plastic bags will be fluttering in the wind.

Sources:

• greenerideal.com/news/environment/0613-how-do-plastic-bags-affect-our-environment
• reusethisbag.com/articles/plastic-shopping-bags-environmental-impact/
• dnr.wi.gov/topic/recycling/bags.html
• motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environmental-policy/plastic-bag-problem-ze0z13022war
• reusethisbag.com/articles/do-reusable-bags-really-help-the-environment/
• reusiethisbag.com/articles/5-reasons-to-go-reusable
• reusethisbag.com/articles/the-truth-about-paper-bags