December 22, 2024

Tag: Us & Them

Sports

James Harris 1st Black Quarterback in NFL – podcast

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Fascinating podcast about James Harris, the first black NFL quarterback who withstood Civil Rights era hate and ultimately led the LA Rams to the two NFC Championship Games in row.

One of the commentators makes a good argument as to why Harris starting at Quarterback for the Buffalo Bills and later the Los Angeles Rams was the most significant single feat in the desegregation of professional sports.
When a player falls off the TV screen it is easy to not notice where they went. I didn’t realize that after two very strong seasons, being voted team captain and MVP of the Pro Bowl he was traded away to San Diego where he became Dan Fouts’s backup. Not something that ever happened to a white all-pro quarterback at the height of his career.
I was surprised to learn that after old fashioned race attitudes forced him out of a starting QB role and later retired, he remained employed in a suit and tie by the NFL until 2015.
This is a podcast from Us & Them, Trey Kay’s Public Radio program that explores contentious social issues through the voices of the people who actually experience them first hand.
 
And while this one doesn’t so much take an Us vs. Them approach, I found this one of the most fascinating episodes. Not just because I am a football fan, but because of what I learned about the all-black colleges in the South and the very different priorities student athletes had there compared to the major predominantly white universities, etc.
 

Arts and Culture / News and Commentary

Us & Them – America’s cultural divide explored – Review

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Investigative commentator Trey Kay explores controversial issues in Us & Them.

A new series on iTunes, Us & Them podcasts delve into America’s cultural divide to find common ground that may help bridge the gaps perceived by Americans along both sides of even the most impassioned ideological argument.

Also available at National Public Radio

A Peabody Award winning radio journalist, Trey Kay has many years of experience interviewing people of all walks of life for various programs on NPR and New York Public Radio. For his own podcasts produced for West Virginia Public Radio, he has focused his keen ear upon the opinions and experiences of those whose core beliefs have been affected by encounters with other people different from themselves.

In some cases they began in a hostile stance against members of their own communities, because of contrary points of view regarding issues such as gay marriage and progressive trends in public school curriculums and textbooks. But these same individuals came to be more tolerant and even friendly with others they first encountered as dogmatic enemies, once they came to know them as people.

“…Trey Kay’s pleasant manner and affable speaking voice has a calming effect, but his concern for his topic comes through clearly, as does his enthusiastic curiosity about the lives and outlook of other people, so that his monologs and interviews never acquire that typical NPR sedated talking head tone. And never does he seem to ask a question and be moving on the next while his recorder takes in their response. He listens and reacts, remaining very much in the moment, which is engaging for his audience, and those he is questioning….”

Read the Full Review