Traveling is supposed to open your mind and expand your horizons — but what if it doesn't? In her new book Airplane Mode, author Shahnaz Habib suggests that sometimes, traveling does more to enforce our ideas about the world than to upend them. Which means that people with "passport privilege" — AKA, the ability to travel freely from country to country — may end up feeling like the stars of some massive international adventure, while people whose travel is more restricted feel like perpetual int...
Nov 29, 2023•32 min•Ep. 431
The word "reservation" implies "reserved" – as in, this land is reserved for Native Americans. But most reservation land actually isn't owned by tribes. That's true for the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe in northern Minnesota, where the tribe owns just a tiny fraction of its reservation land. But just northwest of Leech Lake is Red Lake: one of the only reservations in the country where the tribe owns all of its land. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy ...
Nov 22, 2023•51 min•Ep. 430
On this week's Code Switch, we hear from two Palestinian American poets who talk about what it's like to be Palestinian American in the U.S. Fady Joudah and Tariq Luthun say the way their stories are told — or aren't told — has contributed to what they see as an erasure of their identities, and often of their humanity. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Nov 15, 2023•36 min•Ep. 429
OK, not exactly a computer — more like, the wild array of technologies that inform what we consume on our computers and phones. Because on this episode, we're looking at how AI and race bias intersect. Safiya Noble, a professor at UCLA and the author of the book Algorithms of Oppression talks us through some of the messy issues that arise when algorithms and tech are used as substitutes for good old-fashioned human brains. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NP...
Nov 08, 2023•34 min•Ep. 428
We're bringing you something special from our play cousins over at Embedded : the first episode of a three part series about the often neglected history of trans youth in America. We meet Zen, a Mexican-American, New Orleans native, who is coming into their transness, as we learn about an historic trans person, Bernard, from Alabama in the early 1900s, fighting to be seen. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Nov 03, 2023•44 min
More than a decade since B.A. Parker last dabbled in the Black punk scene, she heads to a punk a show, and remembers a question from James Spooner: "What is more liberating than a mosh pit full of smiling Black faces?" Parker talks to James about what it means to be a Black punk, creating the Afropunk Festival and its evolution, and a new anthology he co-edited called Black Punk Now . Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Nov 01, 2023•32 min•Ep. 427
Ada Limón is many things: the U.S. Poet Laureate, a recently named MacArthur "Genius," a Latina, a summer person becoming a fall person. But underneath all those outer identities, she's still in search for the "original animal at [her] core." Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Oct 25, 2023•35 min•Ep. 426
Being a new parent is exhausting at the best of times. There are diapers to change, bottles to fill, screaming sobs to quiet down. But beyond all the routine chores that come with parenting, there are the larger social questions of how to raise a kid in a complex, unjust, and ever-changing world. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Oct 18, 2023•28 min•Ep. 425
In her memoir Rivermouth, author Alejandra Oliva recounts her experiences working as a translator and interpreter for people seeking asylum in the U.S. But as she navigates the world of immigration advocacy, she starts to grapple with the question of what it means to help, and what it means to "want to star in the helping." Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Oct 11, 2023•32 min•Ep. 424
South Baltimore has some of the most polluted air in the country. Local teenagers are fighting polluters back, and slowly building toward climate justice. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Oct 04, 2023•39 min•Ep. 423
In the past decade, the problem of mass incarceration has gotten increased attention and thought. But in his new book, Mass Supervision, Vincent Schiraldi argues that in those conversations, people often neglect to think about probation and parole — two of the biggest feeders to the U.S.'s prison population. These systems surveil close to four million Americans, which Schiraldi says is both a huge waste of resources and a massive human rights violation. On this episode, we're talking to Schirald...
Sep 27, 2023•36 min•Ep. 422
In June, the Supreme Court banned affirmative action at colleges and universities across the country, with one glaring exception: military academies. On this episode, we're asking — why? Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Sep 20, 2023•37 min•Ep. 421
For centuries, the idea of the "American Dream" has been a powerful narrative for many immigrant communities. But for just as long, many African Americans have known that the American Dream was never meant to include them. So what happens when those beliefs collide? Today ten percent of the Black population in the U.S. are immigrants, and many grapple with this question. In this episode, we'll hear from Claude Gatebuke, who moved from Kigali to Nashville as a teenager in the wake of the Rwandan ...
Sep 13, 2023•39 min•Ep. 420
This week, the NFL is gearing up for the start of its 104th season. But as this new chapter begins, we're looking at some of the league's old problems with race and diversity — ones that have implications for the coaches, the players, and the fans. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Sep 06, 2023•34 min•Ep. 419
Bad Bunny, the genre- and gender norm-defying Puerto Rican rapper, is one of the biggest music stars on the planet. He has also provided a global megaphone for Puerto Rican discontent. In this episode, we take a look at how Bad Bunny became the unlikely voice of resistance in Puerto Rico. This episode originally aired in January 2023. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Aug 30, 2023•38 min•Ep. 418
When a comedian of color makes a joke, is it always about race, even if it's not about race? Code Switch talks to comedians Aparna Nancherla, Brian Bahe and Maz Jobrani about how and why race makes an appearance in their jokes. Plus, one of our own reveals her early-career dabbling in comedy. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Aug 23, 2023•27 min•Ep. 417
When Richard J. Lonsinger's birth mother passed away in 2010, he wasn't included in the distribution of her estate. Feeling hurt and excluded, he asked a judge to re-open her estate, to give him a part of one particular asset: an Osage headright. But the more Lonsinger learned about the history of the headrights, the more he began to wonder who was really entitled to them, and where he fit in. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Aug 16, 2023•24 min•Ep. 416
For hip-hop's not-official-but-kind-of-official 50th birthday, we dig into its many contradictions. From the legend of the South Bronx block party where hip-hop was born to the multi-billion-dollar global industry and tool for U.S. diplomacy it has become, America's relationship with hip-hop — and the people who make it — is complicated. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Aug 09, 2023•34 min•Ep. 415
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 and define race in fantasy — and in the tangible world. This week we revisit a deep dive into that game. What we find about racial stereotypes and colonialist supremacy is illuminating. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Aug 02, 2023•33 min•Ep. 414
There are race books, and there are beach reads, and never the twain shall meet. You know that old truism, right? Well, this is Code Switch (the show about race and identity and romance and drama from NPR), and we weren't willing to accept that dichotomy. So on this episode, we're bringing you a bouquet of our favorite summer thrillers, love stories, memoirs and more — all of which have something to say about race. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privac...
Jul 26, 2023•34 min•Ep. 413
Gene Demby and NPR's Huo Jingnan dive into a conspiracy theory about how "global elites" are forcing people to eat bugs. And no huge surprise — the theory's popularity is largely about its loudest proponents' racist fear-mongering. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Jul 19, 2023•33 min•Ep. 412
Brian de los Santos always thought of Mexico as his "home" — despite not having been able to return to his country of birth for three decades. But when he finally got a chance to visit, his conception of what home was and where he belonged totally shifted. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Jul 12, 2023•37 min•Ep. 411
This week, we're sharing the first episode of "Buffalo Extreme," a three-part series from our play cousins at NPR's Embedded. The series follows a Black cheer squad, their moms and their coaches in the year after the racist massacre at the Jefferson Street Tops in Buffalo, New York, just blocks from their gym. NPR hands the mic to the girls and women in that community as they navigate the complicated path to recovery in the year after. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com...
Jul 05, 2023•33 min•Ep. 410
In the second of two episodes, Code Switch co-host B.A. Parker is figuring out what kind of descendant she wants to be. Parker and her mom decide to go back to the plantation where their ancestors were enslaved, because despite the circumstances of slavery, this is where their family began. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Jun 28, 2023•34 min•Ep. 409
Code Switch co-host B.A. Parker digs into what it means to maintain the legacy of her ancestors. In part one of two episodes, Parker goes to a symposium for descendants of slavery and meets people who, like her, are caretakers of "culturally significant historical places." Note: A technical error with a previous version of this episode resulted in an audio mix that may have been difficult to listen to. Please check out the new mix! Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adc...
Jun 21, 2023•34 min•Ep. 408
How do you participate in a faith practice that has a rough track record with racism? That's what our play-cousin J.C. Howard gets into on this week's episode of Code Switch . He talks to us about Black Christians who, like him for a time, found their spiritual homes in white evangelical churches. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Jun 14, 2023•38 min•Ep. 407
On this week's Code Switch , producer Kumari Devarajan finds her demographic clone in actor and comedian D'Lo. Kumari found that when you share so much in common with a stranger who is putting their business on front street for the world to see, it can feel like they're sharing your secrets, too. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Jun 07, 2023•30 min•Ep. 406
Ava Chin's family has been in the U.S. for generations — but Ava was disheartened to learn that so much of what they had experienced was totally absent from American history books. So she embarked on a journey to learn more about her ancestors, and in doing so, to work toward correcting the historical record for all Americans. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
May 31, 2023•30 min•Ep. 405
One of the most pivotal moments in Japanese American history was when the U.S. government uprooted more than 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry and forced them into incarceration camps. But there is another, less-known story about the tens of thousands of Japanese Americans who were living in Japan during World War II — and whose lives uprooted in a very different way. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
May 24, 2023•35 min•Ep. 404
The Supreme Court is about to decide on a case arguing that the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) discriminates against white foster parents. Journalist Rebecca Nagle explains how this decision could reverse centuries of U.S. law protecting the rights of Indigenous nations. "Native kids have been the tip of the spear in attacks on tribal sovereignty for generations." Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
May 17, 2023•33 min•Ep. 403
