With Good Reason

Serena Williams is widely regarded as one of the best athletes of all time. But far too often her passion on the tennis court has been criticized as aggression. So why do Black sports women seem to attract more scrutiny than other athletes? Letisha Engracio Cardoso Brown says it’s because the same commonly-held stereotypes for Black women in society frequently get repurposed into sport. And: The USA men’s basketball team boasted a perfect Olympic record of 63-0. But Russia had developed a scrappy, up and coming team of their own. So, when the two basketball teams collided at the 1972 Olympics - it was bound to be a showdown of epic proportions. Christopher Elzey calls this game the greatest WTF moment in sports history and explains how it opens a window into Cold War animosity.

Later in the show: From Stone Cold Steve Austin to The Undertaker, the 1990’s were one of professional wrestling's most popular eras. Marc Ouellette says this golden age of wrestling reflected a perceived decline in masculinity throughout society. Plus: Many elite athletes, including Eliud Klipchoge - the famous Kenyan who ran the fastest marathon in 2019 - have endorsed hydrogel technology. But does the stuff actually work? Dan Baur says it's inconclusive at best.

Remember those twelve months where every ad was asking you to vote? It was inescapable. Gilda Pedraza and her team worked around the clock to ensure Latino voters in Georgia had the information they needed to cast their ballot. But even with historic voter turnout, a third of eligible adults didn’t vote. Bernard Fraga says that’s a political failure, and not the failure of individual voters. Plus: Kathleen Hale and Mitchell Brown have spent years traveling the country talking to election officials. Why they say this past election has forever transformed the voting process in America.

Later in the show: Young people feel ignored by politicians, and politicians feel ignored by young people. So the cycle repeats. A lot of young people don’t vote, and politicians opt out of spending money trying to reach them. Evette Dionne says that new media engages the young voters who politicians ignore.

We all know that teenagers would rather die than hang out with their parents, right? Not so, says Jon Lohman. The Old Fiddlers Convention in Galax, Virginia, brings young and old together to share traditions and songs. But how are musicians faring during the pandemic? Plus: The studio comes alive with song when Steve Rockenbach and Gregg Kimball bring their banjos in to share the instrument’s storied history in America. They reflect on how the banjo’s transformation has affected song styles to this day.

Later in the show: When the first settlers came to America from England and Scotland they brought with them a rich tradition of ballad-singing. Cece Conway traces the singing families and their songs from the UK to the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, where they influenced modern performers from Joan Baez to the Carolina Chocolate Drops.

In 2016, Lashrecse Aird made history as the youngest woman ever elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. She says her unique perspective - shaped by a childhood of adversity and hardship - allows her to better serve the full range of experiences within her constituency. And: Ebony Guy was inspired to get involved in activism from a young age by her grandmother, a beloved civil rights leader in Halifax County, Virginia. Now a board member at Virginia Organizing - her activist work has centered on voter education and political campaigns. Plus: From 1997-2001, Paul Clinton Harris represented Albemarle County in the Virginia House of Delegates. A descendant of enslaved people at Monticello, he describes his unlikely path to political office - serving in the very seat that Thomas Jefferson once held many years ago.

Later in the show: A.E. Dick Howard directed the commission that rewrote Virginia’s constitution, which was eventually enacted in 1971. It was a bipartisan effort intended to heal the wounds of the state’s racist past. 50 years later, he reflects on whether the new constitution went far enough.

Scholars, historic interpreters, and descendants of enslaved people recently gathered at Montpelier, the home of James Madison. They were there to create a rubric for historic sites who want to engage descendant communities in their work. Anthropologist Michael Blakey discusses why historical sites must consider the needs and wishes of descendants. And: Historian Hasan Kwame Jeffries says we need to do more to teach our kids about African American history, even when it covers tough subjects.

Later in the show: Justin Reid tells the story of how he set out to find the plantation where his great-great grandfather was enslaved, and what he found there. And: Crystal Rosson is the great-granddaughter of Sterling Jones Sr., who was enslaved at the former Sweet Briar Plantation, now Sweet Briar College. Rosson shares her family’s history and explains why research by African American genealogists matters as they discover more about the integral role of African Americans in Virginia's history.

In mid-December, UVA Health physician Taison Bell rolled up his sleeve to be one of the first people in Charlottesville to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Today he shares why he got the vaccine and how we can get it to as many Americans as possible. Bell was named a 2021 Outstanding Faculty member by The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. And: Navigating social lives in the time of Covid can be awkward. How do you tell your friends, ”No, I won’t be joining you at that restaurant, but yes, we can take a walk in the park together” without having to explain or excuse? Carrie Dolan says we need to get better at communicating our personal risk levels during the pandemic or we won’t be able to stop it.

Later in the show: Every day, all over the world, people die because they don’t have access to life-saving medications. A problem that was already acute has become even more visible as countries struggle to produce and supply Covid-19 medications. Frank Gupton and the Medicines for All Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University are using innovative production techniques that cut costs and democratize the industry. Plus: Bioprospectors are companies or people that go looking for materials that can become a new medication. Sometimes these bioprospectors strike gold. But what if that “discovered” medication has been known and used by indigenous people for years? Christopher Morris studies who gets to profit off of selling the medication--the bioprospectors or the indigenous people who found it first?

We’re drawn to people who are kind to others. But once that kind person becomes our partner, we want special treatment. Lalin Anik says that we get a boost from feeling our "uniqueness" affirmed. She shares just how critical that special treatment is to a fulfilling relationship. And: Can one person really satisfy all of our needs? Julian Glover says no. They share how non-monogamy can be a freedom practice.

Later in the show: Studies show that the more we look at screens, the less we feel our body. Scary, right? In our virtual world, we are becoming increasingly out of touch. Two days after Sushma Subramanian got engaged, she moved to Virginia to teach, leaving her fiance behind. She tells us about the app that got them talking -- and touching-- across the distance. Plus: Kristina Feeser shares her bittersweet realities of love.

Dwayne Betts was only a teenager when he was convicted of carjacking and sentenced to 9 years in prison. Today, he’s an acclaimed poet and PhD candidate at Yale Law School. He recounts his inspiring story and brings attention to one of the biggest civil rights issues of our time: felon disenfranchisement.

Later in the show: Think immigrant voting is un-American? Think again. Ron Hayduk says it’s as American as apple pie. Plus: We take for granted that 18 is the voting age. But it wasn’t always this way. Rebecca DeSchweinitz explains how the Vote 18 movement led to the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 in 1971.

While people planned socially distanced funerals and waited in miles-long lines for canned food, the stock market soared and brought the GDP with it. The pandemic has revealed that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a poor measure of economic and societal health. Stephen Macekura’s new book, The Mismeasure of Progress, explores GDP and the long history of those who have critiqued it. And: The 2008 financial crisis scared investors. So they parked their money in huge land grabs for farms that would ideally prevent future food shortages in the United States. Bikrum Gill says the effort did more harm than good.

Later in the show: There’s an eviction crisis in the United States, and it’s disproportionately affecting communities of color. Kathryn Howell and Ben Teresa are part of the RVA Eviction Lab which gathers data on eviction rates. They say high eviction rates destabilize communities, cause high turnover in student populations, and reduce community engagement and access to community networks and jobs. Plus: People who live on or near American Indian reservations are being denied access to consumer credit. Valentina Dimitrova-Grajzl says redlining is a factor. Dimitrova-Grajzl has been named a 2019 outstanding faculty member by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

When theatres, clubs, and bars shuttered their doors back in March, Michael-Birch Pierce and their fellow drag queens took to the streets - literally. Also: After growing up in the Philippines, Francis Tanglao Aguas realized that he’d spent a lot of time on colonized soil. That’s why he founded Aguas Arts Ink, a digital theatre collective dedicated to decolonizing the body and mind. Then: How do you dance in a space that technically doesn’t exist? Dancer and choreographer Scotty Hardwig answers this riddle using motion-sensing technology, creating what he calls “Dance Sci-fi.”

Later in the show: Every year high schools put on “The Wizard of Oz” and every year someone gets stuck playing Aunt Em. Joshua Rashon Streeter and Jessica Harris make a case for going beyond the canon with youth theatre, and why kids should play kids. Plus: Fever, shortness of breath, loss of taste and/or smell… we know the symptoms by heart. Still, almost a year into the pandemic, there are certain things a COVID test can’t detect. In her play Symptomatic: IRL, Brittney Harris explores the more abstract side effects of the virus.