Jacki Huntington

It was January 27, 2017, a Friday night, and the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) was expecting two clients at John F. Kennedy International Airport. One was Hameed Khalid Darweesh, an Iraqi man who had worked for ten years as an interpreter for the United States military. After years of waiting to join his wife in the US and after extensive vetting, he was handcuffed after getting off the plane. Protests swamped the airport and many others around the country.

Video Above: 'My sister died, then Black Trans Lives Matter was born' Frank “Nitty” Sensabaugh was working a dead end job– “one of those jobs you have when you’re trying to get a job”– when Jay Anderson was shot and killed in his car by a Wauwatosa, WI, police officer on June 23, 2016. In Milwaukee, the most racially segregated city in the United States, protesters organised and called for justice, and riots ensued. Sensabaugh wanted to go to the protests, but his work schedule wouldn’t allow it.

The label of “essential worker” in the United States is often expressed as a badge of honour, especially in the COVID-19 pandemic-mired lead up to the American general election in November. In the earlier days of the pandemic, across American cities, people would collectively cheer out of their windows at 8 pm local time each night in gratitude for those working in frontline jobs. Billboards line Hollywood Boulevard and other major arteries of Los Angeles in thanks to these workers.