Us & Them

If you really listen, we sound like two different countries: Red America and Blue America. Then again, most of us aren't listening. As we head into the midterm elections, WVPB and KCRW are teaming up to try to change that. “Red State, Blue State” is a weekly conversation between West Virginians and Californians about the issues that divide us. Trey co-hosts the series. Over the next six weeks, we’ll bring you “Red State Blue State” as an Us & Them extra.

We’re excited to announce that West Virginia Public Broadcasting has invited Us & Them to be a regular part of their radio programming. Starting this week, West Virginia audiences are going to hear stories about America’s culture divides -- many that our devoted podcast listeners have been enjoying since 2015 – but now… On The Radio!!! Can you tell that we’re excited?

The Village Voice and Billboard Magazine have compared Stephan Said to Woody Guthrie because uses his music to bridge divides between people. He's taken his guitar to war zones in Iraq, refugee camps in the Mediterranean and to ravaged Houston after Hurricane Harvey. When he gets to these places, he sits down with local folks to play music and help the healing begin.

The start of the football season has once again, seen players standing up, kneeling down or not showing up for the national anthem. Some see this as a question of patriotism, others as an issue of free expression. If it seems football has, perhaps unwillingly, become a platform for civil rights issues, well, keep it mind that didn’t start with Colin Kapernick but with James “Shack” Harris, the first African American to be named in the NFL as a starting quarterback.

Americans tend to sort themselves into tribes that share similar culture, ideas and values. Trey recalls kids at his West Virginia high school sorting themselves into different camps, and how the way one dressed was often a defining factor, right down to the shoes.

Are America’s schools hostile to religion? There’s been a tussle over this issue since the early 60s, when the Supreme Court ruled that prayer and school-sponsored Bible reading were unconstitutional. Since then, evangelical Christians have claimed that God and religion have all but been driven out of education and secular Americans, concerned about blurring the wall between church and state, have been vigilant over any erosion of that separation. The fact is religion has been a part of America’s classrooms ever since there were public schools. And before the court weighed in, some public schools welcomed preachers and priests and even rabbis into classrooms. They called it Weekday Religious Education. And here’s a surprise… a version of Weekday Religious Education is still going on today.

Things have changed in the old neighborhood. There are cool little restaurants and cafes, funky little shops and a vibrant art and music scene. On one side, you have the newcomers— people who came here to open new businesses and live in this trendy neighborhood. On the other side you have the old guard — the people who grew up here, before it was trendy, and have been watching the place they call home rapidly dissolve all around them. For this episode of the Us & Them, we look at the evolution of neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Chicago and New Orleans and learn how all of this change is anything but simple.

Hey, it’s Independence Day - the official birth of our nation! Watching fireworks on July 4th may be as close as some of us get to expressing a shared love of country with fellow citizens. As you very well know, there is a great deal of polarization in our nation. To work through many of our differences, we have to do more than just stand next to each other on patriotic holidays. In the spirit of celebrating our country’s founding and with the hope of encouraging the bridging of some of our nation’s divides, we’re re-releasing a piece that features a friendship between Vassar College professor, Hua Hsu and one of his more unconventional students, Dave Carrell, an Iraq War veteran.

Places like Lake Tahoe, Nantucket and Colorado ski country are playgrounds for the wealthy. To make the playground run smoothly, there’s a dire need for people to cook food, bus tables, clean rooms, mow lawns, manicure golf courses and operate ski lifts. It all works well until those same workers don’t have a place to lay their heads at night. For this episode, Trey speaks with a few journalists across the country, who’ve been reporting about a shortage of affordable living accommodations for workers in affluent vacation communities.

Trey Kay has observed how things have changed significantly for LGBTQ people where he lives in New York. But he’s not sure if anything’s changed in a more conservative place like West Virginia, where he grew up. A recent Pew survey shows that more than half of West Virginians believe the Bible is the literal word of God. An even higher percentage of Mountain State residents think homosexuality should be discouraged. Trey went back home to visit some old friends, and to see what it’s like to be gay in Appalachia today.

America and Iran used to be close allies, but since the Iranian Revolution began in 1979, the relationship has been akin to a bad divorce. After President Trump’s announcement to pull the U.S. out of the Iran Nuclear Deal, cable news has been abuzz with political pundits and foreign policy scholars reacting to the latest chapter of the tortured relationship. But there are Iranian and American love stories that have worked out. Trey’s friend Essi Zahedi risked life and limb to flee his country during the Iranian Revolution. His motivation for leaving wasn’t just about politics or religion, or fear for his safety. A major reason was to be with the American woman who captured his heart.

In today’s culturally polarized society, discussing whether the planet is warming and if humans have an impact on the climate is a topic that’s often avoided. Why? Because speaking about it can be akin to touching the “third rail” of religion and politics. Us & Them’s Trey Kay speaks with a person whose professional and personal lives revolve around the highly charged topic of climate change. Katharine Hayhoe is a respected climate scientist, as well as a devoted evangelical Christian – two descriptions that some Americans don’t think naturally go together.

As the United States works through what the American Medical Association describes as “the worst drug addiction epidemic in its history,” we revisit the story of Dimitri. This former junkie was delivered from a 27-year heroin addiction by a controversial treatment that seems to work miracles for people addicted to opioids. Since kicking the habit, he’s been an evangelist to other junkies, spreading the good news about the wondrous drug that instantly cured him.

Back in 2015, we aired an episode called “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is” that didn’t go over so well with a bunch of our listeners. We received messages saying that Trey mishandled a conversation between a physicist who defends climate science and a former public school teacher who’s an evolution skeptic. With the hope of finding a better way around the culture war aspects of science debates, we’re putting that episode (and ourselves) under the microscope.

As promised, we are posting some additional segments from our last episode, My Friend From Camp that we just couldn’t fit in. If you haven’t heard that episode yet, by all means, head over to your Us and Them feed and have a listen to that one first. These segments will make a whole lot more sense once you’ve heard the full episode. Former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg about the meaning of the term jihad. Former Guantanamo MP Albert Melise explains why he wanted to re-enlist and go back to the island. Andrea Pitzer, journalist and author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, on whether or not she thinks the United States will ever face up to what was done at Guantanamo Bay and black sites around the world.