app_store_button

google_play_button

is Device Banner Block 894x1036

Hlustaðu og lestu

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.

 Support public media by joining NPR+ at plus.npr.org. You’ll get perks for over 25 NPR podcasts, including bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Code Switch.

Code Switch

There’s a growing backlash to the surveillance systems that have quietly wired themselves into American neighborhoods, with concern growing among people who have never felt watched this way before. Gene talks with historian Matthew Guariglia about how the surveillance state got built, who it was built on first, and why opposing it now unites so many factions.

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Why we’re all being watched

In the 25 years since 9/11, we've seen the definition of terrorism expand. The Trump administration has called more and more groups “terrorists,” from “narco-terrorists” in Ecuador to people who protest ICE to the entire Democratic party. This week, our conversation with Saher Selod, an expert on the surveillance of Muslims, about the effects of the war on terror after 9/11, and historian Alex Lubin about how the word “terrorist” has been used to enact violence and surveillance.

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

25 years after 9/11, our definition of terrorism continues to expand

Lauryn Hill is a generational voice, a cultural lightning rod, and one of music’s biggest what-ifs. Our very own B.A. Parker joined the Big Lives podcast, hosted by Kai Wright and Emmanuel Dzotsi, to unpack the meteoric rise of the Fugees frontwoman and the intense pressures that pushed one of hip-hop and R&B’s brightest stars out of the spotlight.

Find Big Lives wherever you get your podcasts.

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

We're Miseducated on Lauryn Hill

Ads for GLP-1s are everywhere. This week, we dig into why so many of those ads seem to feature Black women with Sabrina Strings, author of “Fearing the Black Body” a book about the racial origins of fatphobia. We get into the toxic comment culture around everyone from Lizzo to Ariana Grande, and how the origins of body shaming have all led us to this post-body positive moment. 

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Freedom from fatness: Why GLP-1s go after Black bodies

Banana Ball is a barnstorming baseball league revived by the tremendously popular Savannah Bananas, a team with millions of followers on TikTok and Instagram — known as much for their dance routines and shenanigans as their actual baseball. Recently the league resurrected the Indianapolis Clowns, a Negro League team with a contentious history of racial minstrelsy. We talk with journalist Josh Levin, who followed the Clowns through their Banana Ball debut.

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Banana Ball's racial minstrelsy past

Is there a family estrangement epidemic? This week, we dig into what’s behind the no-contact movement with sociologist Rin Reczek, author of the new book, “Families We Lose.” Rin walks us through who gets cut off, why the numbers look so different for Black mothers and Black fathers, and how we can start rethinking what family means.

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Unpacking estrangement: Who goes No Contact?

In 1775, half a million enslaved people had to pick a side in a war between two groups of white men who both claimed to want freedom. In this live episode of Our Ancestors Were Messy, friend of the show, Nichole Hill takes B.A. Parker and Gene Demby through the choices one man made – from a South Carolina plantation, to the British lines, to Nova Scotia, to Sierra Leone. It's a choose-your-own-adventure through history where there are no great options.

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Our Ancestors Were Messy: a Black history comedy show

Last year President Trump made English the official language of the United States. Then his administration moved to zero out the federal money that teaches it. But even fully funded, those programs reached fewer than five-percent of the 25 million adults in this country still learning English. Code Switch producer Xavier Lopez watched his own parents struggle to learn the language when he immigrated here as a kid. Now, Xavier reports on how adult English language classes are about much more than learning the English.

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Trump is demanding English — while defunding ESL

Jay-Z says he's a business, man. He sold out Yankee Stadium for three nights, and used the stage to answer everyone calling him a sellout. The billionaire released the 30th-anniversary edition of his debut album about hustling his way to independence as a Target exclusive in the middle of a boycott many Black organizers say never ended. We dig into how this is what Jay-Z has been selling his whole career -- it’s how Black excellence and Black capitalism get fed to us as the same thing.

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Jay-Z has F-you money. Is he saying it to the wrong people?

The Trump administration has been closing off nearly every pathway into the U.S. — except one. The H-2A visa is for the seasonal workers who pick the fruits and vegetables in your grocery store, and it’s the only federal visa program still growing: up 500% since 2012, even though pretty much everyone hates it. NPR’s Ximena Bustillo traces how the history of agricultural labor created this problematic program we can’t live without.
Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

How farm work became the exception to Trump's border crackdown

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 by asking some of our favorite poets who they think counts — and how all of that has changed in these strange, new times.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

When Poets Decide Who Counts

Hlustaðu og lestu

Other podcasts you might like ...