America is made up of hard working people who are often forgotten.  Unseen workers do everything from keeping are houses heated to making sure our airplanes don’t crash.  Too often, we go on with our day, and forget that these people are what make our lives easy and normal.  Next time you eat a blueberry or take out your garbage don’t forget about all the Americans who work low wages and long hours to make our country the best on the planet.  

When most people think of landfills they picture rotting garbage and everything on our planet slowly dying.  What people don’t realize is that piles of trash are not what dumps look like, the process of garbage disposal is much more complex.  In today’s modern society, trash is compacted and then covered with large piles of dirt so that it can decompose. Another astonishing fact is that while a landfill decomposes, it produces methane gas which is collected and turned into energy that can power entire cities.  Americans do need to work on producing less waste and recycling more but countless engineers have created ways to turn our worlds poison into useful products. Also, today the United States has over 425 landfills that produce “green fuel”. Every year these plants continue to work, we use 169 million barrels less of oil.  This shows that even though trash gets a bad reputation, it can be used to do amazing things.

When you order something on the internet the all consuming thought of “when will my precious piece of merchandise reach my doorstep?” is what goes through every Americans mind.   Most people don’t think about the fact that your purchase is most likely traveling from another state thanks to a hard working truck driver. Without these drivers, many of the billion dollar corporations would not be able to function and America would be extremely different or not exist at all.  Truck drivers make low wages and often work extreme hours so that all the parts of a car can be assembled at a plant or so you can get your Amazon package in record time. Many drivers do jobs over the course of days and only stop to eat, sleep in their trucks, and use the restroom. Also, this is an industry dominated by men but there over 200,000 women who defy the norm in the United States and help thousands of businesses function every day.   

Imagine living on an island that is the size of six football fields in Alaska with temperatures of -30 degrees fahrenheit or colder.  Now imagine living there for months on end. Would you survive? Thousands of people do this as a career and drill oil in these crazy conditions so that America can have access to modern energy.  Many of these Islands are man made by creating a barrier and layering tons and tons of gravel and are used for one specific purpose, oil. Also, oil drilling can be extremely cost rewarding or costly depending on the progress of a specific day of drilling.  The hard work that these men put in every day is the reason that you can drive a car or have an asphalt driveway, or do almost anything you could think of during day because oil plays a huge role in modern life.

Every day, over 100,000 flights take off and end up in their destination safely all thanks to the hard work of air traffic controllers.  These controllers have to make sure that pilots know where they are going and don’t collide with other planes while trying to reach their destinations.  They constantly have to be alert and be good at making quick decisions in order to keep every passenger safe. Many of the air traffic control towers in America are extremely old and force staff to “go old school” when it comes to the technology available.  Also, due to a large part of the controller population retiring, training to be a controller is become shorter and less strenuous which is a bad thing due to the complexity of the job. This is not good because less experienced controllers could lead to a higher risk for aviation accidents.  Even though the job can be tuff, many controllers love their jobs and thanks to their dedication, You can travel anywhere in the world and get there safely.

Every Summer, thousands of farm hands make their way to Maine to pick blueberries.  Blueberries grow on bushes in sandy soil and are extremely hard to pick. Many of the pickers are migrant workers and pick these berries using large rakes and stand in the sun all day.  The average weekly wage of a blueberry picker is around $1350 a week. I know what you are thinking, “that’s it?” but blueberries pay much more than picking any other crops in America. Many migrant workers make their way up the east coast throughout the year and perform backbreaking work for extremely low wages in order for the rest of America to have easy access to fresh fruits and veggies. Picking blueberries is financially much more rewarding that the $375 a week wage picking Georgia peaches or $400 to harvest Florida Oranges.  To many pickers, Maine is the favorite place to work. Next time you eat a fruit salad or blueberry pancakes remember the people who spend hot summer days raking berries off of bushes for small amounts of pay.

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Generations of men in Cadiz, Ohio travel six miles into the earth on their morning commute to mine for coal.  Coal mining is very hard work and can be very dangerous but everyone who works in the Hopedale mine loves it because they feel that coal mining is in there blood and a good escape from the stresses of everyday life.  Their shifts regularly go over ten hours and will work five days in a row with three days off after that. but, America needs coal. Coal is what helps heat your home and turn on your lights and without it, people would not be able to use the modern technologies that are so prevalent in today’s society.  Hard working Miners across America are the reason that everyone is able to access modern energy and deserve extreme graditure. Instead, many think of coal mining as a dead profession and don’t appreciate the hard work of over 50,000 miners.

After all the effort me and my team put in over countless years of working with prisoners on death row in the south, I finally decided to take the largest step of my career and try to put a stop to the issue of racial bias at a national level. After lots of discussion with my staff and other criminal justice lawyers, I decided that the only way for us to have a fighting chance was to pass a new amendment that specifies how a racially diverse jury should be chosen and create a check on court cases so that racial bias is eliminated from the judicial system. This was not going to be easy but, I felt that after meeting so many people that had been so negatively affected by what this amendment would fix, it was about time someone stepped up and tried to solve this ongoing problem. Many forget that even if you are innocent, adjusting to life after being convicted for something you did not do is extremely difficult and ruins many peoples lives. I wanted all these people to never have to feel the pain and suffering that people like Walter had to go through because in some senses, the suffering after prison is even worse then the prison experience. I hoped that this amendment would change numerous peoples lives for the better, and create a justice system that people would actually have hope in and truly believe that what they were getting was fair, and not horribly distorted with issues like racial bias.

After reading chapter 14 in Just Mercy, I was overcome with emotion and empathy for the characters that the book discussed especially Walter. If I was to be put on death row for years and one day be declared innocent I would feel extremely mixed emotions. I would of course feel relived because now I would not be killed for a crime that I did not commit. I also think I would also be angry because the US legal system is obviously corrupt. Lastly, I think I would feel sad for the horrible conditions that so many had to endure in prison especially for the inmates who where innocent for their crimes. “Walter was not the first person to be released from death row after being proved innocent. Several dozen innocent people who had been wrongly condemned to death row had been freed before him.” This quote makes me angry because many others had to go through the same hardship that Walter did and be shamed for so long for something they did not do.