Code Switch
Episodes
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...
'Payback's A B****'
26 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We're ending Black history month where we started it...talking about reparations. On this episode, we're joined by Erika Alexander and Whitney Dow, wh...
A Shot In The Dark
24 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As the rollout of coronavirus vaccines unfolds, one big challenge for public health officials has been the skepticism many Black people have toward th...
Becoming 'Black Moses'
17 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Marcus Garvey was an immigrant, a firebrand, a businessman. He was viewed with deep suspicion by the civil rights establishment. He would also become ...
Black Kiss-tory
10 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Too often, Black history is portrayed as a story of struggle and suffering, completely devoid of joy. So we called up some romance novelists whose wor...
Who's 'Black Enough' For Reparations?
03 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Black History Month is here, which means we're diving into big, sticky questions about what exactly it means to be Black. So this week on the show: Wh...
Stepping Out Of The Shadow Of 'Killer King'
27 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, residents of Compton and Watts in South Los Angeles had to rely on one particularly troubled hospital for their medical care. A new state...
The Last Four Years
20 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Trump administration is coming to a close, but which elements of the Trump era are here to stay? We spoke to NPR's White House reporter, Ayesha Ra...
From The Fringe To The Capitol
13 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Like all of you, we are still trying to make sense of Wednesday, January 6, 2021. Because even after the past four years, there are still new iteratio...
Finding 'A Perfect Match'
06 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Two close friends both suffered from the same aggressive form of cancer. After years of treatment, one lived and the other died. And while many variab...
The Fire Still Burning
30 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If 2020 has taught us anything, it's that history informs every aspect of our present. So today we're bringing you an episode of NPR's history podcast...
From Generation To Generation
28 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This month on Code Switch, we're thinking a lot about family and history. So we wanted to bring you this special episode from our friends at NPR's It'...
Family Stories, Family Lies
23 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
December is a month when a lot of people are thinking about family and tradition. Reliving memories. Retelling old stories. Each year, those stories g...
Black And Up In Arms
16 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Guns. They're as American as apple pie. They represent independence and self-reliance. But ... not so much if you're Black. On this episode, we're get...
The Books That Got Away
13 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Listen, a lot has happened this year, and it's no shock that some things may have slipped under the radar. So our resident book expert, Karen Grigsby ...
Stepping Back Inside Carmen Maria Machado's 'Dream House'
09 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It's no secret that Code Switch is a team full of book nerds. So this week, we're revisiting one of our favorite book conversations, with author Carme...
Words Of Advice
01 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Let's face it — we could all use some help right now. So today on the pod, we're looking at a few of our favorite questions about race and identity ...
Thank You, Next
25 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It's Thanksgiving week, and like basically everything else about 2020, this holiday is on track to be...let's call it "different." But while the world...
The White Elephants In The Room
19 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
One of the biggest storylines from the 2020 presidential race has ... well, race at the center of it. If you paid attention to the stories about exit ...
Claim Us If You're Famous
11 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Kamala Harris is the vice president-elect, which marks an impressive list of firsts: woman in the White House; Black woman in the White House, Asian A...
We ... Don't Know Anything Yet
04 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Election Day has come and gone, but we're still awhile away from knowing what the outcome will be. But while there's a lot we don't about the results,...
An Historic Vote, Among Many
31 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For a lot of reasons, the 2020 election feels historic. But in one important way, it's like so many elections throughout American history: Black and b...
The Latinx Vote Comes Of Age
28 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For the first time in election history, Latinos are projected to be the second-largest voting demographic in the country. The reason? Gen Z Latinx vot...
Is Trump Really That Racist?
21 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We know his rhetoric has been described as boundary breaking when it comes to race. But U.S. presidents have been enacting racist policies forever. So...
Let's Talk About Kamala Harris
14 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The VP candidate's biography and heritage allow people to project all kinds of ideas onto her, and to see what they want to see. But Kamala Harris's i...
Hip-Hop, Mass Incarceration, And A Conspiracy Theory For The Ages
09 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Why are hip-hop and mass incarceration so entangled in the U.S.? That's the question that our play cousins at NPR Music, Sidney Madden and Rodney Carm...
A Treaty Right For Cherokee Representation
07 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On this week's episode of Code Switch, we talk about the relevance of a 200 year old treaty — one that most Americans don't know that much about, bu...
A New Look For The Fashion Industry?
03 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Fall is the time for glossy fashion magazines, full of dazzling looks and the seasons hottest looks. But this year, we noticed something unusual: The ...
Is It Time To Say R.I.P. To 'POC'?
30 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Suffice it to say, we use the term "POC" a lot on Code Switch. But critiques of the initialism — and the popularization of the term "BIPOC" — caus...
Battle Of The Books
23 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Code Switch team has been mired in a months-long debate that we're attempting to settle once and for all: What kind of books are best to read duri...
The Protests Heard 'Round The World
16 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How did a police killing in Minneapolis lead people thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean to pull down the statue of a slave trader who's been ...
The Kids Are All Right
09 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Adults often find it really hard to talk about race. But kids? Maybe not so much. NPR received more than 2,000 entries in this year's Student Podcast ...
Balls And Strikes
02 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Matilda Crawford. Sallie Bell. Carrie Jones. Dora Jones. Orphelia Turner. Sarah A. Collier. In 1881, these six Black women brought the city of Atlanta...
The United States' Pre-Existing Conditions
26 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How was the the richest and most powerful country in the world laid low by a virus only nanometers in size? Ed Yong, a science reporter for The Atlant...
Keep Your Friends Closer
19 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As part of our Ask Code Switch series, we're tackling your toughest questions about race and friendship. We help our listeners understand how race and...
Kamala, Joe, And The Fissures In The Base
12 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Black voters are the Democrats' most reliable and influential voting bloc. But this election has underscored the tensions between those Black voters, ...
Bonus Episode: Katrina, 15 Years Later
08 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It's hurricane season, so this week, we're bringing you a bonus episode, from the Atlantic's Floodlines podcast. On this episode, "Through the Looking...
The Long, Bloody Strike For Ethnic Studies
05 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The largest public university system in the country, the Cal State system, just announced a new graduation requirement: students must take an ethnic s...
One Korean American's Reckoning
29 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
At a Black Lives Matter protest in Los Angeles, a young Korean American man named Edmond Hong decided to grab a megaphone. Addressing other Asian Amer...
Un-HolyLand? An Arab Muslim Reckoning With Racism
22 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
After his daughter's racist and anti-LGBTQ social media posts became public, an Arab-Muslim entrepreneur is fighting to keep his once-burgeoning busin...
Remembering The 'Divine Diahann Carroll'
17 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On what would have been Diahann Carroll's 85th birthday, we're celebrating the legacy of the actress, model and singer. Reporter Sonari Glinton went t...
What's In A 'Karen'?
15 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"Karen" has become cultural shorthand for a white woman who wields her race as a cudgel. And look, we all love to hate a good Karen. But where did thi...
An Immune System
08 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
While it's technically possible to win a civil lawsuit against police officers for wrongdoing, there's a reason it almost never happens: a legal techn...
We Aren't Who We Think We Are
01 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Every family has a myth about who they are and where they came from. And there are a lot of reasons people tell these stories. Sometimes it's to make ...
They Don't Say Our Names Enough
27 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This year, Pride Month intersects with a surge of protests against racism and police brutality. So this week, courtesy of The Nod podcast, we're looki...
Author Karla Cornejo Villavicencio Talks 'The Undocumented Americans'
24 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, The Undocumented Americans, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio writes about delivery men, housekeepers, and day laborers — the undocumente...
DACA Decision: Check-In with Miriam Gonzalez
19 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that DACA could remain in place, recipient Miriam Gonzalez was relieved. As a plaintiff in the case, she's be...
Why Now, White People?
17 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The video is horrific, and the brutality is stark. But that was the case in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014 and Minnesota in 2016. This time, though, white peo...
Bonus Episode: 'Not Just Another Protest'
12 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Suffice it to say, the past few weeks have been a lot to unpack. So today, we're bringing you a special bonus episode from our friends at It's Been a ...
Unmasking The 'Outside Agitator'
10 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Whenever a protest boils up, it's a safe bet that public officials will quickly blame any violence or disruption on "outside agitators." But what, exa...
A Decade Of Watching Black People Die
31 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The last few weeks have been filled with devastating news — stories about the police killing black people. At this point, these calamities feel fami...
Songs Giving Us (Much Needed) Life
27 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Talking about race can get real heavy, real fast. Listening to music is one way people have been lightening the mood and sorting through their feeling...
COVID Diaries: Jessica And Sean Apply For A Loan
20 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On March 1, two Los Angeles-based capoeira instructors realized a dream almost 15 years in the making — they opened up their very own gym. Two weeks...
Ask Code Switch: The Coronavirus Edition
13 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We take on some of your questions about race, the coronavirus and social distancing. The questions are tricky, and as usual on Code Switch, the realit...
What Does 'Hood Feminism' Mean For A Pandemic?
06 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated issues that disproportionately affect women. So on this episode, we're talking to Mikki Kendall — author of...
When Poets Decide Who Counts
29 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
All month long, we've been answering versions of one giant question: Who counts in 2020? Well, April is poetry month, so we decided to end our series ...
Puerto Rico, Island Of Racial Harmony?
24 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Many Puerto Ricans grow up being taught that they're a mixture of three races: black, white and indigenous. But on the U.S. census, a majority of Puer...
The News Beyond The COVID Numbers
22 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, numbers have been flying at us about the spread of the illness—and then the next minute those same numbers are ...
Black Like Who?
15 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It's one of the thorniest questions in any theoretical plan for reparations for black people: Who should get them? On this episode, we dig into some i...
Why The Coronavirus Is Hitting Black Communities Hardest
11 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Many have referred to COVID-19 as a "great equalizer." But the virus has actually exacerbated all sorts of disparities. When it comes to race, black A...
A Treacherous Choice And A Treaty Right
08 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Principal Chief of Cherokee Nation told his people to stay strong during this pandemic, and to remember how much they've endured over a long histo...
Mother, Should I Trust The Census Bureau?
01 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Right now, the U.S. Census Bureau is trying to count every single person living in the country. It's a complex undertaking with enormous stakes. But s...
Code Switch: Race. In Your Face.
25 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Code Switch is a weekly podcast that explores how race intersects with every aspect of our lives. Hosts Shereen Marisol Meraji and Gene Demby bring ho...
Sex, Friendship And Aging: 'It's Not All Downhill From Here'
25 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week, senior correspondent Karen Grigsby Bates talks with the best-selling author Terry McMillan, famous for her novels Waiting to Exhale and How...
The All-Women Mariachi Group That's Lifting Our Spirits
18 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
With all this pandemic anxiety swirling, we thought you might need some music to take your mind off things. So this week, we've got an episode from ou...
The Limits Of Empathy
11 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In matters of race and justice, empathy is often held up as a goal unto itself. But what comes after understanding? In this episode, we're teaming up ...
When Fear Of The Coronavirus Turns Into Racism And Xenophobia
04 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As international health agencies warn that COVID-19 could become a pandemic, fears over the new coronavirus' spread have activated old, racist suspici...
Claude Neal: A Strange And Bitter Crop
26 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Eighty-five years ago, a crowd of several thousand white people gathered in Jackson County, Florida, to participate in the lynching of a man named Cla...
Blexodus: The Black Exodus From The GOP
19 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How did the party of the Ku Klux Klan became the party of choice for black voters? And how did the party of Abraham Lincoln become 90 percent white? I...
Pt. 2: Black Parents Take Control, Teachers Strike Back
12 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This is Part II of the story about the 1968 teachers' strike that happened in New York city after Black and Puerto Rican parents demanded more say ove...
Black Parents Take Control, Teachers Strike Back
05 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1968, a vicious battle went down between white teachers and black and Puerto Rican parents in a Brooklyn school district. Many say the conflict bro...
Books For Your Mind, Belly And Soul
29 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Books help teach us about the world, our communities and ourselves. So this week, the Code Switch team is chatting it up with the authors of some of o...
Bonus Episode: 'Between Friends' From WNYC
23 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A text message gone wrong. A bachelorette party exclusion. A racist comment during the 2016 debates. When our friends at WNYC's Death, Sex and Money a...