Us & Them

America’s public schools are once again in the crosshairs of our nation’s culture wars. Some parents want more say in what and how their kids are taught — especially topics like racial history and gender studies. These parents say schools are pushing a social agenda they don’t agree with. The call for more parental involvement includes increased challenges to the books used in classrooms. Last year, those cases quadrupled with challenges against nearly 1600 individual titles. Educators worry that the pushback against classroom materials can also achieve a broader goal — to challenge teachers with policies and laws that restrict what and how they can teach.

Americans are looking back to reassess their history and origins. George Floyd’s murder launched a global movement to assert the critical role that race plays in American law and society; however, even before Black Lives Matter protests swept the nation and the world, there were efforts to redefine America’s origin story. Now, there are fresh fracture points in how we see ourselves and how we teach our history. A focus of this debate is on a little-known academic and legal concept called Critical Race Theory that says that racism is inherent in our laws and institutions. The theory is not part of standard public school curriculum; however, it has become a catch-all term for efforts to include race as an element in how we teach America’s history. Some parents are against any approach that makes their children pawns in a racial legacy they say focuses too much on oppression and victimization. Once again, one of our nation’s most sensitive cultural flashpoints is evident in debates over laws and school curriculum, and who decides what students will learn about our past. 

Born from an era of segregated educational opportunities when Black students were not welcome at predominantly white schools, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have been focused on surrounding students with Black excellence. Today, HBCUs are no longer exclusive. In fact, some schools — like Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD — are actively recruiting a more diverse population to provide a more global experience to prepare graduates for the future. In West Virginia, white students make up a significant majority of the enrollment at the state's two HBCUs. Us & Them host Trey Kay looks at this era of intense competition for students and how some of the nation’s 100-plus HBCUs are adapting for the future.  

The public health campaign to sell people on COVID-19 vaccinations is more than a year old, but its success is limited. The latest strain of the virus shows that unvaccinated people are significantly more likely to contract the omicron variant, resulting in higher rates of hospitalization and death. This reality raises a question - why are people refusing the shots? What’s gone wrong with the public health message? Early on the focus was on mass vaccinations, which convinced many millions of people. When the numbers stalled, it was time for incentives; get a shot, win a gift card or a car. In West Virginia, the campaign became, “Do it for Baby Dog,” using the governor’s English Bulldog as a mascot. But few of these efforts are swaying vaccine-resistant people. So, what will work? On the next Us & Them, we’ll hear why vaccination campaigns were successful in the past, and the approach many experts say we need to start trying.

We can document almost everything around us with devices of all kinds. But in 1970, there were few cameras around when police opened fire on crowds in Augusta, Georgia. A protest-turned-riot over the brutal murder of a Black teenager left six Black men dead from police bullets. But there was never justice for any of the deaths, including 16-year-old Charles Oatman in the Richmond County Jail. The story of that riot remains relatively unknown among Augusta residents both Black and white. Us & Them host Trey Kay talks with podcast producer Sea Stachura about her award-winning work, “Shots in the Back: Exhuming the 1970 Augusta Riot.” Historians call it one of the largest uprisings of the Civil Rights Era in the Deep South.  

A social movement has been gaining steam in the past decade as we’ve learned more about the way trauma can affect our physical and psychological health. A study more than twenty years ago, first came up with a way to assess the impact of childhood neglect, abuse and family dysfunction. Now, advocates are getting traction with “trauma-aware” campaigns and coalitions. School districts, communities, states and even countries are investing in trauma awareness, training and screening. Nearly half the kids under 18 in the U.S. have had an adverse experience or serious trauma. The original study concluded that the more traumas early in life… lead to poor health outcomes later on. That research got almost no attention when it was published in 1998 however today, its findings are considered ground-breaking. But some say using such a rubric to assess a person’s experience won’t work for everyone and may simply label and limit their future potential.

The coronavirus pandemic continues to prove just how interconnected the world is. Now, a new COVID strain called “omicron,” shows the potential downside of our global vaccination approach. As people in the U.S and Europe line up for booster shots, low vaccination rates in some countries allow the virus to mutate into new strains. ‘America first’ has been a consistent focus for the Biden administration’s vaccination campaign. Early in 2021, high income countries controlled nearly 60 percent of global vaccine doses, despite having just 16 percent of the world’s population. Millions of people around the world continue to wait for their first vaccination dose. COVID may prove the only way to defeat a virus is to provide equitable treatment around the world.

Masks and vaccines continue to trigger Us & Them divides across the nation. As statewide public health mandates have dwindled, public health choices increasingly fall to local government officials - city, county and school board leaders. Many say the mask and vaccination requirements they’ve imposed in the interests of public health, have put a target on their back. More than 80% report they’ve been harassed, threatened or experienced violence. Some are afraid to do their job and they say the aggressive resistance has a budgetary impact on cities required to enhance safety measures. Us & Them host Trey Kay travels to several southern states to hear from people about their decisions and the consequences.

Travel is an activity some people use as a classroom.  Leaving the familiar lets us learn about culture, history, the environment and many other topics. Recently, a small group spent six days traveling America’s southern states to learn about the country’s racial past and the impact of the Civil Rights movement today. This immersive tour took them across several states to places that have come to define periods in America’s racial history—from Charleston, South Carolina’s slave trade market to Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. The group visited sites that put this country’s racist history on display, and Us & Them host Trey Kay was along to hear them reflect on our nation and themselves.

It’s another Thanksgiving with COVID-19, but this time, vaccinations allow many Americans to gather together and share a hug and a meal. Us & Them host Trey Kay invites his ‘virtual dinner party’ guests back for an anniversary. It’s a tradition we began last year - bringing together a wide ranging group to talk occasionally about the hot topics of the day. We talk politics and the 2020 election as well as the issues of election reform that continue to reverberate. COVID vaccinations and masks present some honest conversation. This year we’ll see what kind of common ground there is at the table. It seems the more  the dinner party guests talk with each other, the more they learn something  that can help  them see things more clearly and connect on different levels.