Us & Them

Whatever you call what happened at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, a rally - a protest - a riot - or an insurrection, the congressional investigation and hearings are forging new territory. On this episode of Us & Them , we look at who’s watching the hearings, who’s not and why. What some call a clarifying moment in our nation’s experiment in democracy is surprisingly forgettable to others....

More than a hundred years ago West Virginia was home to our nation’s most violent labor uprising. For some, the Battle of Blair Mountain was a watershed moment when coal workers decided their rights were worth fighting and even dying for. The armed insurrection pitted 10,000 coal miners against 3,000 heavily armed coal industry guards and state troopers. The conflict came to a head because of the...

Many West Virginians have trouble with their teeth. In fact, there’s a big gap between folks who can reliably access an affordable dentist and those who can’t. That’s no surprise when half the state’s counties have fewer than six dentists. A recent national ranking shows West Virginia is second to last in overall oral health care. A state report shows that by third grade, 56 percent of children sh...

More than a dozen states have new laws banning transgender girls and women from competing on girls and womens sports teams. Recently, three states have limited medical care or treatment that supports gender affirming therapy. On this episode of Us & Them , the battle over gender and sports. We’ll hear from transgender athletes who say they want to be who they truly are as they compete on the p...

2020 presented new levels of outrage over police killings of Black and Brown people in this nation. Police killed George Floyd and Breonna Taylor which prompted protests, marches and rallies to denounce racially motivated police brutality. A Black Lives Matter march in Kingwood, West Virginia set up a flash point for that tiny town. Black protestors and their allies faced off with white people who...

Charges of vaccine hoarding and global protectionism are coloring the debate over our  response to new strains of COVID with vaccinations. The World Health Organization reports so far, only 16% of people in low-income countries have gotten a single vaccine dose. That compares with 80% in some high-income countries. The role vaccinations can play in shortening or ending the pandemic is still critic...

Healthcare workers are the glue in our public health system. They’ve seen firsthand the impacts of messaging around COVID-19 — the good, the bad, and the downright dangerous — especially on social media. That firehose of information shaped our experience of the pandemic. The internet has also catapulted dangerous misinformation about the virus and treatment into mainstream public opinion. It’s a c...

America has roughly 400 million guns in circulation. Our divisions - social, political and racial - and our fear of those differences fuel even more gun purchases. 2020 showed a historic rise in gun violence. Guns killed a record 45,000 people, the majority of them by suicide. In this episode of Us & Them we explore the foundations of the Second Amendment and the cultural and historical belief...

The weedkiller dicamba has created a divide between people who work the land in Arkansas.  In a new episode from the award-winning program Us & Them (from PRX & West Virginia Public Broadcasting), their team follows up on a story that’s gotten ugly over the past few years. A newer version of the herbicide is designed to give soybean farmers a way to combat pigweed, a tenacious plant that c...

Our trust can be tested by many things, both personal and professional. Political fractures make us question those we disagree with. The shifting science of a pandemic presents challenging scenarios for healthcare leaders. As COVID cases continue to rise and fall, Us & Them wanted to hear from people who’ve landed at different points along this trust continuum. Some don’t trust information or...

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 yea...

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 teac...

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 populat...

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 publ...

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...

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,...

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 administra...

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’v...

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...

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 electio...

Us & Them host Trey Kay honors Veterans Day with a remarkable conversation with the last surviving World War ll U.S. Marine recipient of the Medal of Honor. Hershel Woodrow “Woody” Williams grew up as a farm kid in the Mountain State and enlisted in the Marine Corps just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He served in the Pacific campaign and fought in the Battle of Iwo Jima. Williams received...

West Virginia is now the 42nd state to introduce public charter schools as an education choice for parents and students. A new state law allows the creation of ten charter schools over the next three years. That can include two virtual charter schools. A state authorizing board is reviewing seven applications that are required to follow the same rules and regulations that public schools do. But ch...

America is seen as a land of opportunities and education for all. But a group of young refugees in Pennsylvania had to challenge the local school district to access their schooling. Lancaster school officials first said the six refugees aged 17 to 21 were too old for public school programs. Only after a lawsuit and protracted negotiations, were the students placed in classes for English language l...

Every year, West Virginia children are taken into state custody. Sometimes, a case involves parental neglect or drug abuse. Other times, kids commit crimes and are placed in juvenile residential facilities. The juvenile justice programs and agencies have been under a spotlight over the past decade - partly because West Virginia has had one of the highest rates of juvenile incarceration in the coun...

One hundred years ago West Virginia was home to our nation’s most violent labor uprising. For some, the Battle of Blair Mountain was a watershed moment when coal workers decided their rights were worth fighting and even dying for. The armed insurrection pitted 10,000 coal miners against 3,000 heavily armed coal industry guards and state troopers. The conflict came to a head because of the social a...