Code Switch

Black reality in a world of fantasy

12 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Why build a fantasy world that still has racism? B.A. Parker moderates a discussion on Black science fiction and fantasy with authors Tochi Onyebuchi ...

Omar Apollo on making music, being queer and Latinx

05 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

NPR's Alt.Latino gets a reboot, and for its first episode, they speak with R&B darling Omar Apollo. Apollo shares what it's been like being a role mod...

Gaming out race in Dungeons & Dragons

28 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dungeons & Dragons is one of the most popular tabletop role-playing games of all time. But it has also helped cement some ideas about how we create an...

In 1962, segregationists set up "Reverse Freedom Rides"

21 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Recently, Republican governors have been sending migrants from the southern border to cities they deem more liberal under false pretenses. The politic...

Can therapy solve racism?

14 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Nearly 20% of Americans turned to therapy in 2020. That had us wondering: What exactly can therapy accomplish? Today, we're sharing the stories of two...

How the Pell Grant helped POCs go to college

07 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The cost of college has been on everyone's minds, especially with student debt cancellation. Pell Grants are one way many low income students have man...

What does it mean to "inherit whiteness?"

31 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Baynard Woods' new memoir, Inheritance: An Autobiography of Whiteness, Woods reflects on how growing up white in South Carolina impacted his life. ...

What makes a good race joke?

24 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When a comedian of color makes a joke, is it always about race, even if it's not about race? In part two of our comedians episodes, Code Switch talks ...

What's so funny about race?

17 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What makes a great joke about race? In the first of two episodes, Code Switch talks to comedians Ziwe, Anjelah Johnson-Reyes and Joel Kim Booster abou...

Into the glittering neon universe of 'P-Valley' with Katori Hall

10 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Starz hit show P-Valley takes audiences to a strip club in a fictional town in the Mississippi Delta. Part soap opera, part Southern Gothic, the s...

Lost In Translation

03 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today on the show, we're bringing you the stories of two families grappling with how best to communicate across linguistic differences. In the first s...

Meet B.A. Parker — our new co-host!

27 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Fam: We finally have a new co-host of the Code Switch podcast! And we're just a *tiny bit* excited. So today on the show, we're introducing you to B.A...

Who belongs in the Cherokee Nation?

20 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1866, the Cherokee Nation promised citizenship for Black "freedmen" and their descendants. But more than a century later, the descendants of the fr...

School Colors Episode 9: "Water Under The Bridge"

15 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Over the course of this season, we've explored a rich history and complicated present, but what about the future? In the final episode, we catch up wi...

Code Switch's playlist for a summer road trip

13 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we're talking about the podcasts that podcasters listen to. These are the shows that members of the Code Switch team cannot tear our ears a...

School Colors Bonus: "Ms. Mitchell's Pandemic Diary"

08 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Pat Mitchell is the longtime principal of P.S. 48 – an elementary school in Jamaica, Queens. And while she cares deeply about her students and her w...

'Wherever you go, there you are'

06 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Many immigrants have described the feeling of being different people in different places. Maybe in one country, you're a little goofy, a little wild. ...

School Colors Episode 8: "The Only Way Out"

01 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When the District 28 diversity planning process came around, many Chinese parents had already been activated a year earlier by the fight to defend the...

No Man's Land

29 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Tens of thousands of children were adopted from other countries by parents in the U.S., only to discover as adults a quirk in federal law that meant t...

School Colors Episode 7: "The Sleeping Giant"

24 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In some ways, this entire season was prompted by the parents who organized against diversity planning in School District 28. So in this episode, we're...

On Food, Mattress Sales, and Juneteenth

19 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It's the second year that Juneteenth has been a federal holiday — which means it's getting the full summer holiday treatment: sales on appliances, b...

School Colors Episode 6: "Below Liberty"

17 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Though a lot of parents and educators agree there needs to be some change in District 28, the question remains: what kind of change? When we asked aro...

The impact of COVID-19, a million deaths in

15 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A new book by Linda Villarosa looks at how racial bias in healthcare has costs for all Americans. Spoiler: Poverty counts — but not as much as you'd...

Spilling the T

08 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Code Switch's Kumari Devarajan found an unlikely demographic doppelganger in D'Lo, a comedian and playwright whose one-person show about growing up as...

School Colors Episode 5: "The Melting Pot"

03 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Until recently, School District 28 in Queens, N.Y., was characterized by a white Northside, and a Black Southside. But today, the district, and Queens...

Rethinking 'safety' in the wake of Uvalde

01 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the wake of violence and tragedies, people are often left in search of ways to feel safe again. That almost inevitably to conversations about the r...

School Colors Episode 4: "The Mason-Dixon Line"

27 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

So much of the present day conversation about District 28 hinges on the dynamic between the Northside and the Southside. But why were the North and th...

How We Decide Who Is 'Worthy of Welcome'

25 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Millions of Syrians have been displaced by ongoing civil war. In her new book, Refuge, Heba Gowayed follows Syrians who have resettled in the U.S., Ca...

School Colors Episode 3: "The Battle of Forest Hills"

20 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 1970s, Forest Hills, Queens, became a national symbol of white, middle class resistance to integration. Instead of public schools, this f...

The Utang Clan

18 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Utang na loob is the Filipino concept of an eternal debt to others, be it family or friends, who do a favor for you. It goes back to pre-colonial time...

School Colors Episode 2: "Tales From The Southside"

11 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

School District 28 in Queens, N.Y., has a Northside and a Southside. To put it simply, the Southside is Black and the farther north you go, the fewer ...

School Colors Episode 1: "There Is No Plan"

04 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2019, a school district in Queens N.Y., one of the most diverse places on the planet, is selected to go through the process of creating something u...

Coming Soon: Code Switch presents 'School Colors'

02 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Coming soon to the Code Switch feed: School Colors, a limited-run series about how race, class and power shape American cities and schools. Hosts Mark...

The LA Uprising, a generation later

27 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Some call it a riot. Some call it an uprising. Many Korean Americans simply call it "Sai-i-gu" (literally, 4-2-9.) But no matter what you call it, it'...

Race, queerness, and superpowers in 'Everything, Everywhere, All at Once'

20 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How can anything be more important than what's happening right now? That's the question a woman named Evelyn Wang is pondering right before she is thr...

A makeup company gets a facelift

13 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the 70s and 80s, Fashion Fair was an iconic cosmetics company designed to create makeup for Black women of all shades. This is the story of that co...

A New Movement on Standing Rock

06 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What do you do when all your options for school kind of suck? That was the question some folks on the Standing Rock Reservation found themselves askin...

The dance that made its way from Harlem to Sweden

30 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Lindy Hop is a dance that was born in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s — created and performed by African Americans in segregated clubs and dance halls...

Why the N-word is so toxic

23 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It is probably the most radioactive word in the English language. At the same time, the N-word is kind of everywhere: books, movies, music, comedy (no...

Screams and Silence

16 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This week marks the one year anniversary of a deadly shooting spree in Atlanta, where eight people were killed. Six of those people were Asian America...

What's In A Dad?

09 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Gene Demby and comedian Hari Kondabolu are both new fathers, and they're both learning to raise kids who will have very different identities and upbri...

Mabel Fairbanks: The Ice Breaker

02 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Figure skating has always been about flair and drama. But what happens on the ice is nothing compared to what goes on behind the scenes. This week, wi...

The rise and fall of 'America's Dad'

23 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

At the height of his career, Bill Cosby was one of the most famous men in the United States. He was the biggest and highest paid star in the country, ...

Can therapy solve racism?

16 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2020, nearly 20% of Americans turned to therapy. Many of those people were looking for a space to process some of the big, painful events they were...

Humor, poetry and romance on Code Switch Live

09 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Live from your computer screens, it's Code Switch! Guest hosts Ayesha Rascoe and Denice Frohman joined us to talk poetry and humor with special guests...

Bonus Episode: Consider the Lobstermen

07 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Canada, tensions between indigenous fishermen and commercial fishermen have been simmering for decades. On today's bonus episode, from our friends ...

The 'double-edged sword' of being a Black first

02 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It's Black History Month, which is likely to bring boundless stories of Black Excellence and Black Firsts. So today on the show, we're talking about C...

Bonus: Getting real (like, really real) with Gabrielle Union

30 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We hear the phrase "unapologetically Black" thrown around a lot. But what does it actually mean? In this bonus episode from our newest play cousins at...

Playing Pretendian

26 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

People lie about being Native American all the time – on college applications, on job applications, in casual conversation. But how do "Pretendians"...

Bonus: Remembering the iconic, complicated André Leon Talley

23 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Since he died this week, André Leon Talley has been described over and over again as "larger than life." But on this episode, brought to us by our fr...

A whiteness that's only skin deep

19 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

We use words related to color to describe different racial categories all the time — Black, white, brown. But how much of race and identity actually...

They came, they saw, they reckoned?

12 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It's now been more than a year since the so-called "racial reckoning" that marked the summer of 2020. The country, some said confidently, was having t...

Nikole Hannah-Jones on the power of collective memory

05 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What stories do we learn about the history of the United States? Who dreamed up those stories? And what happens when we challenge them? This week on t...

Ask Code Switch: What Does Race Have To Do With Beauty?

29 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This time of year, folks are being inundated with messages about how to become more beautiful. But beauty is an ever-changing goalpost that has everyt...

What We Watched in 2021

22 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Y'all, 2021 brought us a lot of TV. Some of it was even good! So this week, we're talking about the shows that had something interesting to say about ...

Bonus Episode: The blessing and curse of the '90s Latin Pop Explosion

20 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Our play cousins at NPR's It's Been a Minute podcast reexamine the so-called "Latin explosion" of the late '90s: What it was supposed to be for audien...

What Is 'Latin Music' Anyway?

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The term 'Latin Music' can encompass everything from Celia Cruz to Bad Bunny to Selena Gomez to Los Tigres del Norte. It's rock, pop, hip hop, salsa, ...

A Glimpse At 'How The Other Half Eats'

08 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How do race and class affect the way we eat? What makes dollar store junk food different from organic junk food? And when did Whole Foods become such ...

Imagining A World Without Prisons Or Police

01 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When Derecka Purnell was growing up, the police were a regular presence in her life. Years later, the lawyer, activist, and author of the new book, Be...

Ask Code Switch: Thought For Food

24 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It's Thanksgiving week, so we're bringing you a second helping of one of our favorite episodes, where we answer your questions about race and food. We...

'The Characters Are The Light'

17 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

You already know we love books here on Code Switch — and given that we're smack dab in the middle of Native American Heritage month, we thought we'd...

'Being Fly Is An Act Of Community'

10 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When 'Soul Train' first aired in 1971, there had never been a show like it. Fifty years later, that's still true. So this week, we're passing the mic ...

Love And Blood Quantum

03 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

If you're Native American, there's a good chance that you've thought a lot about blood quantum — a highly controversial measurement of the amount of...

Ask Code Switch: Parents Just Don't Understand

27 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Or do they? This week, we're answering some of your toughest questions about race and your parents. How do you create boundaries with immigrant parent...

Painting By Numbers

20 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The 2020 census data is finally here! At first glance, it paints a surprising portrait of a changing United States: The number of people who identify ...

Skeletons In The Closet

13 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In a small suburb of Washington, D.C., a non-descript beige building houses thousands of Native human remains. The remains are currently in the posses...

The Once And Future 'Karen'

06 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

If you've been paying attention to the news over the past couple years, you know what a so-called 'Karen' is: a white woman who uses her race and gend...

The Rise Of The BBL

29 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Black women have always faced immense pressure to make their bodies look a certain way. But if done the "wrong way," achieving that idealized figure c...

The Dramatic Life Of The American Teenager

24 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Kacen Callender started out as a kid in St. Thomas writing fan fiction. Today, they are the author of multiple middle grade and young adult novels ful...

Who You Calling 'Hispanic'?

22 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

But seriously, who? Because while it is Hispanic Heritage Month, the notion of a multiracial, multinational, pan-ethnic identity called "Hispanic" is ...

The Making And Remaking Of Afghanistan

15 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

For two decades, many Americans have seen Afghanistan depicted primarily through the lens of war. But that's not the full story — not even close. Af...

The Lost Summer

08 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Twenty years ago, during the dog days of summer , a fledgling journalist named Shereen Marisol Meraji — maybe you've heard of her? — headed to Dur...

The Folk Devil Made Me Do It

01 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What moral panics reveal about the ongoing freakout over critical race theory in schools.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/...

'Seeing Ghosts' Across Generations

25 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Kat Chow was 13 when her mother died, and with that loss came profound and lasting questions about identity, family and history. In her memoir, Seeing...

Who Runs The World? Kids.

18 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

OK, they're not all kids. But they're all students, they're all amazing, and frankly, we're concerned that they might be coming for our jobs. That's r...

Care To Explain Yourself?

11 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It's hot out, places are shutting down again, and things might just be feeling a little bit slow. So in the spirit of spicing things up, we wanted to ...

Violence That Doesn't Go Viral

04 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We talk a lot on this show about people who have been killed by police officers. But there is so much police violence that falls short of being fatal,...

To Love And Not Forgive

28 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

For much of her childhood, Ashley Ford's father was incarcerated, and her mother struggled to raise her while grappling with her own upended life plan...

Words To Set You Free

21 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Some of the best books can make you feel free — free from your daily grind, free to imagine a new reality, free to explore different facets of your ...

What Does It Mean To Be Latino? The 'Light-Skinned Privilege' Edition

14 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Maria Garcia and Maria Hinojosa are both Mexican American, both mestiza, and both relatively light-skinned. But Maria Hinojosa strongly identifies as ...

Égalité, Fraternité, And 'Libertie'

07 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This month on Code Switch, we're talking about books — new and old — that have deepened our understandings of what it means to be free. First up, ...

A Good ACT To Follow

30 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Forty years ago this month, the CDC reported on patients with HIV/AIDS in the U.S. for the very first time. In the years since, LGBTQIA+ Americans hav...

'Where We Come From': By Any Other Name

27 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Anyone with a name that isn't super common in the United States will tell you that the simple act of introducing yourself can lead to a whole interrog...

Ballers, Shot Callers

23 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Supreme Court just ruled on a case that could change the future of college sports, potentially paving the way for NCAA athletes to be paid. But is...

A Taste Of Freedom

16 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Juneteenth commemorates the day that enslaved Texans found out — more than two years after Emancipation Day — that they were free. It's also a day...

The Racial Reckoning That Wasn't

09 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the wake of several high-profile police killings last summer, support for Black Lives Matter skyrocketed among white Americans. Their new concerns ...

Where Are You Really From?

02 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

If you're a person of color living in the United States, chances are you've been asked more than you care to remember where you're from — no, where ...

Tulsa, 100 Years Later

26 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the spring of 1921, Black residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma's Greenwood neighborhood were attacked by a mob of angry white people. More than 300 people ...

The Sum Of Our Parts

19 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

People of color have a diverse set of interests, experiences, backgrounds and cultures. And the way we experience race and racism can be really differ...

The Kid Mero Talks 'What It Means To Be Latino'

12 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We've said it multiple times on the show: Latinos are the second largest demographic in the United States. But...what does that actually mean? Are Lat...

Show Me The Money

05 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Two friends living in Vermont decided to try a radical experiment: They asked White people in their community to give money directly to their Black ne...

Live From Philly*: A Code Switch Jawn

28 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

OK, so we weren't really in Philly (it's still a pandemic, after all.) But we did talk all things race and Philadelphia with special guests Erika Alex...

A Utopia For Black Capitalism

21 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Floyd McKissick, one of the major leaders of the civil rights movement, had an audacious, lifelong dream. He wanted to build a city — from scratch —...

Do The Golden Arches Bend Toward Justice?

14 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Calls for racial justice are met with a lot of different proposals, but one of the loudest and most enduring is to invest in Black businesses. But can...

Spit A Verse, Drop Some Knowledge

07 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We've spent the past year trying to analyze, dissect and intellectualize all the ways that our world has changed. But sometimes the best way to unders...

Why Are We Here?

31 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Filipinos make up a small fraction of the nurses in the United States, but almost a third of the nurses who have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. have bee...

Screams And Silence

24 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Asian American organizers and influencers have been trying to sound the alarm over a dramatic spike in reports of anti-Asian racism over the last year...

Lonnie Bunch And The 'Museum Of No'

17 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Blacksonian — er, the National Museum of African American History and Culture — was years and years in the making. It's closed down because of...

Saving A Language You're Learning To Speak

10 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Every two weeks, a language dies with its last speaker. That was almost the fate of the Hawaiian language — until a group of young people decided to...

David (Pronounced dah-VEED) Versus Goliath

03 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Summer, 2004. The Olympics in Athens. The event? Men's basketball: U.S. versus Puerto Rico. And the whole world knows that Puerto Rico doesn't stand a...