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Code Switch

What's CODE SWITCH? It's the fearless conversations about race that you've been waiting for. Hosted by journalists of color, our podcast tackles the subject of race with empathy and humor. We explore how race affects every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, food and everything in between. This podcast makes all of us part of the conversation — because we're all part of the story. Code Switch was named Apple Podcasts' first-ever Show of the Year in 2020.

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Episodes

Deja Vu All Over Again

Decades before Christine Blasey-Ford testified before lawmakers, the country had another reckoning with sexual misconduct set against the backdrop of a Supreme Court nomination. This week: what we have — and haven't — learned in the years since the Anita Hill hearings about identity politics, sexual harassment and power. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...

Oct 03, 201825 min

#CriticsSoWhite

The reckoning that is reshaping Hollywood is finally making its way to the critic's perch. Bilal Qureshi joins us to talk about exciting movies coming this fall, and who gets to judge. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Sep 26, 201833 min

Puerto Rico's Other Storm

Long before Hurricane Maria devastated the territory, the threat of financial disaster loomed over Puerto Rico. Now, an old, bitter struggle over who gets to chart the islands' economic future is upending life for everyday Puerto Ricans trying to pick up the pieces. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Sep 19, 201831 min

Ask Code Switch: School Daze

For better or worse, classrooms have always been a site where our country's racial issues get worked out — whether its integration, busing, learning about this country's sordid racial history. On today's Ask Code Switch, we're talking about fitting in, standing out, and standing up for what you believe in. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...

Sep 12, 201843 min

Update: Looking For Marriage In All The Wrong Places

In a unanimous decision, India's Supreme Court struck down a long-standing ban on gay sex. In light of this, we're revisiting an episode about same-sex love and dating apps for South Asians. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Sep 06, 201833 min

Stuck Off The Realness

Prodigy made up half of the hugely influential hip-hop duo Mobb Deep, but spent his life in excruciating pain due to a debilitating disease called sickle cell anemia. On this episode, the hosts of WNYC's The Realness podcast chronicle Prodigy's struggle with the disease, share the story of how the disease was discovered, and explain how black revolutionaries pressed their communities (and the President of the United States) to do something about it. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podc...

Sep 05, 201832 min

So What If He Said It?

In recent weeks, rumors of a recording of President Trump using the N-Word have resurfaced. But critics have been describing Trump as racist for years. So, if this tape were to exist, would it even matter? Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Aug 29, 201821 min

Live From Birmingham...It's Code Switch!

Shereen and Gene head to Alabama to talk about race in the American South. Mayor Randall Woodfin of Birmingham talks about growing up in the shadow of his city's history. The poet Ashley M. Jones shares how she learned to love her hometown. And Gigi Douban of WBHM takes on some tough listener questions about race in the Magic City. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...

Aug 22, 201843 min

Behind The Lies My Teacher Told Me

It's a battle that's endured throughout so much of American history: what gets written into our textbooks. Today we tag in NPR education correspondent Anya Kamenetz, and hear from author James Loewen about the book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...

Aug 15, 201818 min

Talk American

What is the "Standard American Accent"? Where is it from? And what does it mean if you don't have it? Code Switch goes on a trip to the Midwest to find out. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Aug 08, 201826 min

Word Watch, The Sequel: 2Watch 2Wordiest

We're back this week with the grand finale of the Word Watch Game Show! First, we'll uncover the messy history of the term "white trash." Then we'll get into a ditty that signals ... anything "Asian." Come play with us! Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Aug 01, 201830 min

Word Watch: A Code Switch Game Show

English is full of words and phrases with hidden racial backstories. Can you guess their histories? On part one of this two-part episode, we're unpacking the meaning behind "guru" and "boy." Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Jul 25, 201827 min

Rap On Trial

Olutosin Oduwole was a college student and aspiring hip hop star when he was charged with "attempting to make a terrorist threat." Did public perceptions of rap music play a role? This week we're tagging in our friends at Hidden Brain to tell this story. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Jul 18, 201851 min

Word Up

Since 1992, the study known as "The 30 Million Word Gap" has, with unusual power, shaped the way educators, parents and policymakers think about educating poor children. NPR education correspondent Anya Kamenetz joins us to talk about what it gets right, and what it misses. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...

Jul 11, 201823 min

Code Switch's Summer Vacation

We're going on a trip, and we're taking you with us! From the peak of Mount Denali to the beaches of Queens, we're talking camp, suntans and our favorite summer jams. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Jul 04, 201836 min

Immigration Nation

Anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise, and the prospect of mass deportation is in the news. But as much as this seems like a unique moment in history, in many ways, it's history repeating itself. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Jun 27, 201833 min

Looking For Marriage In All The Wrong Places

Online matchmaking sites are making it easier than ever for couples seeking an arranged marriage to meet. Well...not all couples. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Jun 20, 201832 min

Twenty-First Century Blackface

We have one story of how blackface was alive and well on network television in Colombia until 2015. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Jun 13, 201831 min

What We Inherit

On this episode, the story of one family's struggle to end a toxic cycle of inter-generational trauma from forced assimilation. Getting back to their Native Alaskan cultural traditions is key. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Jun 06, 201827 min

A Thousand Ways To Kneel And Kiss The Ground

Last week, the NFL announced a new policy to penalize players who kneel during the national anthem. The announcement drew fresh attention to the century-old tightrope that outspoken black athletes — from Floyd Patterson to Rose Robinson to Colin Kaepernick – have had to walk in order to compete and live by their principles. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...

May 30, 201824 min

Of Bloodlines and Conquistadors

Hispanos have lived side by side the Pueblo people for centuries—mixing cultures, identities and even bloodlines. But recently, tensions have risen among the two populations over Santa Fe's annual conquistador pageant, known as La Entrada, which celebrates the arrival of the Spanish. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...

May 23, 201833 min

What's Black And Gray And Inked All Over?

Black-and-gray tattoos have become increasingly popular over the last four decades. But many people don't realize that the style has its roots in Chicano art, Catholic imagery and "prison ingenuity." (Yes, they were called Prison-Style tattoos for a reason.) Freddy Negrete, a pioneer in the industry, started tattooing fellow inmates in the early 1970s. And while he's no longer tatting people up with guitar strings and ballpoint pens, he's still using some of the same techniques he mastered back ...

May 16, 201824 min

Tough Questions For The World's Toughest Job

Mother's Day is coming up, so we're taking on your most difficult questions around parenting. We'll talk about choosing a school, raising bilingual children, modeling gender identity, and what to do if your kid's afraid of black people. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

May 09, 201831 min

Code Switch Census Watch 2020

We've said it before: The U.S. Census is way more than cold, hard data. It informs what we call ourselves and how we're represented. On this episode, we explore the controversial citizenship question that the Trump administration added to the 2020 census. We also talk about how the U.S. Census helped create the 'Hispanic' label. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...

May 02, 201829 min

It's Bigger Than The Ban

Muslims make up a little over one percent of the U.S. population, but they seem to take up an outsized space in the American imagination. On this episode we explore why that is. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Apr 25, 201842 min

Members of Whose Tribe?

Today, Americans tend to think of Jewish people as white folks, but it wasn't always that way. On this episode, we dig into the complex role Jewish identity has played in America's racial story — especially now, when anti-Semitism is on the rise. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

Apr 18, 201832 min

Location! Location! Location!

It's the force that animates so much of what we cover on Code Switch. And on the 50th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, we take a look at some ways residential segregation is still shaping the ways we live. We head to a border with an ironic name , before dropping in on a movement to remap parts of the South. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...

Apr 11, 201835 min

The Road To The Promised Land, 50 Years Later

Fifty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis, Tenn. This week, we have two stories about the aftermath of his death. The first takes us to Memphis to remember King's final days. The second brings us to Oakland, Calif., where King's assassination "transformed the position of the Black Panther Party overnight." Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...

Apr 04, 201824 min

Amara La Negra: Too Black To Be Latina? Too Latina To Be Black?

People are constantly telling Amara La Negra that she doesn't fit anywhere. Sometimes, she's "too black to be Latina." Other times, she's "too Latina to be black." But Amara says afro-Latinas aren't rare and they're no cause for confusion — they're just in dire need of more representation. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...

Mar 28, 201836 min

The Madness Of March

The NCAA men's basketball tournament is going on right now and will bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. The coaches and commissioners who benefit are overwhelmingly white. The players on the court are MOSTLY black. So what, if anything, are those players owed? Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...

Mar 21, 201826 min