By Nhi Huynh and Emi Glass
Worcester, Mass. and Kettering, Ohio

Racism has always been prevalent in American society and institutions. In May of 2020, national attention turned to combating police brutality after the murder of George Floyd. The video footage of Floyd’s death, along with the tense political climate associated with the pandemic, sparked some of the largest protests in American history. 

Around the same time, many conservative leaders began to refer to COVID-19 as the “China virus,” despite this being overtly racist rhetoric. Asian-Americans felt the devastating effects of this discrimi-nation, evidenced by a drastic rise in hate crimes. Protests swept the nation again in spring of 2021, in re-sponse to a tragic series of shootings in Atlanta, where six Asian women were killed. 

Due to risks associated with large gatherings during COVID-19, protesters took to both the streets and social media to gather support for a multitude of justice movements, such as Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate. As these movements gained traction over the past year, young people emerged at the fore-front. Youth organized and led pro-tests in their communities, but their activism didn’t stop there. 

Young people across the country also amplified their voices online, using apps like Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter to spread information about issues they care about and en-courage others to take action. Youth especially see the value in sharing their opinions on serious matters on-line and using their digital platforms to inform the masses. 

“Everyone can share what they think and feel. I feel like it has escalated, it has brought more light to issues that wouldn’t have gotten a lot of atten-tion,” said Julia, 17. 

However, as issues like systemic racism, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and police violence trend online, teens often report feeling pressured, or seeing others being pressured, into posting about issues they aren’t entirely familiar with. 

Tryphena, 17, recounts feeling pressure from peers to post about a conflict she wasn’t completely edu-cated on. 

“Some of my friends say things in their stories that are like ‘if you don’t post this then it means you don’t care,’ ” she said. “I’m just not sure that I’m the right person to speak out about this right now because I’m just not fully informed.” 

The negative effects of online activism on mental health don’t stop at peer pressure. As conversations surrounding COVID-19 death rates, police brutality, and the Israel-Pales-tine conflict gained widespread at-tention, discussion of tragic events often led to graphic and upsetting images in online spaces, sometimes without any warning. Constant ex-posure to violence and disturbing images, even when it’s online, has been proven to have negative effects on mental and physical wellbeing. Elina, 17, explained how the con-stant exposure to negative news im-pacted her: “When covid started and [the media] were saying all the death rates, it honestly caused me to turn off my phone.”

As the world faces the second year of the pandemic, it’s clear that on-line activism isn’t going anywhere, at least not in the foreseeable future. Young people will continue to be politically active on social media, which makes it imperative to find a balance between speaking out on important issues and taking care of oneself. With so much of young peo-ple’s lives being spent on the inter-net, it’s necessary to be able to take a break from online responsibilities periodically. In fact, taking breaks from social media when needed has been proven to have positive health impacts, such as improving quality of sleep and reducing anxiety. 

If you begin to feel stressed and fatigued by the onslaught of negative news, taking a break from social media could be a beneficial decision. Implementing time limits on certain apps, turning off notifications, and scheduling time away from screens can all help manage social media-induced stress. 

Regina, 16, considers herself to be an online activist. She shared advice for others her age who feel over-whelmed and stressed by politics on social media. 

“It comes down to your limitations. … It’s OK to realize that you’re going to need time off an app. It doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person.”

By Haja Isha Bah
Philadelphia, Pa.

 “Get off of him! It’s time to get off of him!”  shouted Kevin Lawrence  at the video that played  on his wife’s phone.

It was about 8 pm  in Texas, Lawrence’s  home state. He was in  his gym shorts and a t- shirt watching TV in his bedroom when suddenly  his wife came in, held out her phone in front  of him, and said “watch  this video.” His relaxing  evening would then turn  into one full of rage. The  video showed footage of Minneapolis police  officer Derek Chauvin  kneeling on the neck of  George Floyd until Floyd  died. 

Lawrence was upset  that a man had been  killed, but he also was  disappointed in Chauvin.  As a former police of-ficer, he saw Chauvin’s actions as “a viable con-trol technique taught by most police depart-ments” for moments where an officer needed to gain control of a situ-ation. But Lawrence says Chauvin remained on Floyd for far too long. “There’s a care that po-lice officers have, and it was being ignored in the situation,” he says. “The impression I was getting from the look on that officer’s face was that he just didn’t care, and that’s what bothered me about it.”  

Since 2010, Lawrence has been the executive director of the Texas Mu-nicipal Police Association (TMPA), which provides  legal protection, political lobbying, and training for officers across Texas. TMPA’s mission is “to turn Law enforcement into a true profession,” Lawrence says, “to provide the citizens of Texas with the best possible police services through both education and representation.”

So to see police murder a man without any re-morse was embarrassing to Lawrence. As a former officer and a representative of officers across Texas, he was upset by Chauvin making life more difficult for cops: “900,000 other law enforcement officers across this country, they’re all  gonna be judged based on [his actions].”

One of the main fac-tors that Lawrence be-lieves contributed to Floyd’s death was a lack of training. Lawrence says in Minneapolis, “some officers had been trained one way and other of-ficers whose trainings were outdated and they had not been updated; they had not retrained on new policies.” TMPA reached out to agencies to ensure that training standards were up to date and that all officers were being trained prop-erly on every policy. This would, in Lawrence’s opinion, prevent officers from making the same “mistake” as Chauvin. 

Across the country, on Princeton Universi-ty’s campus in New Jer-sey, Gina Feliz saw the Chauvin video too. Like Lawrence, Feliz was re-laxing in her room, “not really expecting much to come of [her] summer.” Feliz opened social media, expecting more Covid-related news, only to be met with the tragic death of a Black man. Uncomfortable with the idea of sharing footage depicting police brutal-ity, Feliz made the conscious decision to not watch the video.  

Feliz was already in-volved in Students for Prison Education, Abo-lition, and Reform (SPEAR), a student group run through Princeton’s Pace Center for Civic En-gagement. “We activate, agitate, and advocate against the carceral state in all forms,” she says, by engaging in what the group’s website describes as “anti-carceral campus activism, legislative advo-cacy, community educa-tion, and direct engage-ment with currently and formerly incarcerated peers.” 

Unlike Lawrence, Feliz believes simply reform-ing policies and trainings won’t change anything; police brutality will con-tinue as if these reforms never existed. What Law-rence calls solutions, Fel-iz considers “non-reformist reforms.” She points out that more than 1,000 people are killed by po-lice each year, many of them in jurisdictions that have already imple-mented changes like the ones Lawrence describes. “On face value, you think that they might help,” she says. “At the same time, they are restoring legitimacy in the police as a whole because peo-ple see that something’s happening and they ac-cept that things will get better from there.” 

George Floyd’s death affected many lives across the country and shaped many decisions that have changed America in big and small ways. Officers feel compelled to stand up for their colleagues, while activists are pushed towards police abolition. A year after protesters filled the streets, Floyd’s death has only intensified many Americans’ feelings about policing and reform. 

By Francesca Mirthil and Jorge Espinoza

Everett, Mass. and El Monte, Calif.

Politics. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear that word? Is it suits? Washington D.C.? More than likely, it might be adults. Why? Well, for one, politics used to be something that one had to immerse themselves in, and older people had the ability to easily access and discuss their political viewpoints. If you were a teenager, you had no real way of commu-nicating your opinions. 

But now, with a cell phone, a downloadable app, and a cell tower, teens have access to political conversations.

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psy-chiatry reported that 90 per-cent of surveyed teens aged 13-17 have used social me-dia at least once; 51 percent reported using it at least once a day. This means that the majority of teens use social media and that the amount of teen-to-teen in-teractions have multiplied. These interactions vary per site, but Instagram is an app of particular interest. On Instagram, social justice and political advocacy have dominated user feeds. But, that is not what Instagram was designed to be.

So what happened? March 2020. As we transitioned our lives to fit inside four walls, social media was a primary source of communication. That was until the death of George Floyd in May of 2020, which spurred a social justice outcry and major social media move-ment.

“All [of] that takes an effect on you,” said Lay-la Brooks, 16, “especially since we were at home and I was in my room all day playing the same video of Black men getting killed by police officers.”

Floyd’s death caused peo-ple to protest, even in the middle of a pandemic, but not everyone did so physi-cally. Many used their social media platforms to make their voices heard. They began following accounts, resharing posts, and designing their own infographics. Now, a year later, many are reckoning with the effec-tiveness of these actions.

For one, social media advocacy was viewed as passive. On Instagram, users are given the chance to fol-low and be followed. Naturally, a user likely follows and is followed by those who share their opinions. This limits the potential for ideas to be challenged. Info-graphics and other content then become useless, regard-less of the information pres-ent within them. 

Roxana Martínez, 17, does not fully agree with the idea of the social media echo chamber. Martinez es-timates that 40 percent of the material she interacts with includes contrasting ideas.

Another problem with social media activism is “cancel culture.” Teenagers have expressed that they feel an obligation to speak about politics.

“I felt like I had to post something. Everyone was like, ‘you’re not support-ing or you’re not spread-ing information,’” said Marshalee Mclean, 16. Marginalized individuals also feel pressure to speak out about issues corre-lated to their race simply because society demands it. “They’ll start to look at me when we’re talk-ing about immigration rights,” said Yarlin Morales, 16. “It’s almost like, I’m forced to do it or like [it’s] my responsibility.”

New Jersey faces the issue of high  taxes for homeowners, and Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack  Ciattarelli has a plan to lower them. 

Ciattarelli, a former state assemblyman and small business owner,  wants to lower taxes through a  thorough revision of the school  funding formula. He would also  redefine “local fair share,” motivating towns and districts to  regionalize, end home improvement-based property tax raises,  and—regardless of the homeowner’s income or length of residency—freeze property taxes when a homeowner turns 65.

 “The property taxes are sky- high,” said Stami Williams, Ciattarelli’s communications director.  Of the current structure, she said, “Everybody is suffering from it, and it doesn’t matter what part of the state [or] who you are.” 

According to a report this year by WalletHub, property taxes in New Jersey are the highest in the nation, with an effective real estate tax rate at 2.47 percent. (Property taxes are collected locally in New Jersey, so each county’s tax rate differs.) 

According to Ciattarelli’s campaign website, “New Jersey can and should be a place where our residents can afford to live and work for generations. As Governor, I will lower your property taxes through comprehensive re-form of our broken school funding formula – a system where 60 percent of state aid goes to just 5 percent of the districts is unsustainable.” This plan has racked up statewide sup-port because school funding among districts remains disproportionate. New Jersey has many similar, small districts, “some rich and some poor, with persistent tax capacity and funding disparities between them,” according to a report for the New jersey Policy Perspective, a nonpartisan think tank.

Asked how Ciattarelli’s team plans to accomplish this goal without compromising the education of at-risk students, Williams said,  “a lot of what [Ciattarelli] is trying to do is rebuild the school funding formula because there is a lot of disparity between where people live, what they’re pay-ing, and the cost for each student.”