 What's up guys? I'm Steve Vazquez for Uproxx. There's a new doc series called Us Against the World set in the landscape of rural Kentucky basketball. You're in a predominant, flat area. They don't want to be beat by black boys. I'm here with hip-hop editor for Uproxx Music Erin Williams to talk about why it matters. Right now. So you've got hoop dreams, more than a game, through the fire, you know, classic basketball documentaries. How does Us Against the World hold up against them? Don't forget those 30 for 30 documentaries. I love those. The Big Five. It's such a great documentary because it's very engaging from the very beginning. You really want to believe that everything's going to be okay. And this is just a microcosm of what we're seeing with Make America Great Again. This is how it starts. This is where it grows out of. It's not necessarily this overt torches in the street sort of uprising. I want to bring up a clip here. This is an exclusive clip. It's never been seen. Why don't you let us know what we're about to see? I think this clip sort of sets up the series as a whole. It sort of establishes that Cordia High School is a very small high school in rural eastern Kentucky that has not had tremendous amount of basketball success until they hire coach Roger Grotes, who did play at the University of Kentucky, also was an NBA player. He starts attracting kids who normally wouldn't have ever chosen this school to play at. So what you're about to see in this clip is how the town reacts to these students despite their basketball success. Cordia was not known for basketball. And then when they rolled out there for the first game, boom. Three-pointers, lightning speed, alley-oop, seven-footers. It should be the feel-good story of the year, but not everybody was happy. The chance were actually taunts aimed at Cordia High basketball players Marlon King and Emmanuel Oatua, who were black transfer students from Canada. Making matters worse, the boy's second home had its glass door shut out Saturday. And on Sunday, this was done to their mailbox. I know a lot of people might have a hard time believing that this is the state of America today. There is this trope, I think, sometimes of the good Negro who comes in and you can be accepted as long as you're, you know, like J Cole said in the song, Kenny Lofton. They only love you when you dunk in the ball. And then once you stop doing that thing that entertains them, that benefits them in some material or immaterial way, they start seeing you as that guy that yelled at Taylor Swift that one time. So let's talk about the film's main character, Coach Roderick Rhodes. I think it's really interesting because he doesn't come from Kentucky. He played at the University of Kentucky and it seems that he fell so much in love with his experience there that he wants to come back to that area and give back. He's always charismatic and charming throughout the entire documentary series. We don't get enough male interaction and entertainment where we see positive relationships of genuine love between two men. They can be father, son, they can be coach, athlete, they can be brothers. It's very hard to say, hey, this is how men should behave. This is how a man comports himself in day-to-day life and in the professional realm because so much of American socio-economic success is founded in the right behaviors. And it's an incredible balancing act for these kids because then they have to also learn how to switch back and have those behaviors that help them survive in these rough neighborhoods. So having a coach is having someone who says, look, you can do it. You can be tough and strong and without sacrificing passion and goals. So to take it back to us against the world, what does it mean when a community decides to take that opportunity away from these kids? Taking that opportunity away from the kids is like taking an opportunity away from everyone because they say two heads are better than one. So if you put 100 people on a problem, then you can solve that problem way faster. One of those kids that's being denied a college education might have gone on to become a scientist who cures cancer. Someone who goes on into politics and who uses their political career to change laws and standards and policies and taking away the 14% of that 100 people, it's doing untold damage to our society as a whole, but it also damages those kids. All right, I'm Steve Vasquez for Up Rocks First. It's been Aaron Williams. You can stream all 10 episodes of Us Against the World for free on Comcast Watchable September 19.