Accessibility links
Code Switch Blog Race and identity, remixed.

Code SwitchCode Switch

Race. In your face.
School Colors Episode 2: 'Tales From The Southside'
Photo by Cassandra Giraldo for NPR

Code Switch

School Colors Episode 2: 'Tales From The Southside'

by , , Carly Rubin , Ilana Levinson , Soraya Shockley

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 Black people you see. But it wasn't always like this. Once the home to two revolutionary experiments in integrated housing, the Southside of the district served as a beacon of interracial cooperation. So what happened between then and now?

School Colors Episode 2: 'Tales From The Southside'

Listen · 50:41
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1097873098/1098127783" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
School Colors Episode 1: 'There Is No Plan'
NPR

Code Switch

School Colors Episode 1: 'There Is No Plan'

by , , Soraya Shockley , Carly Rubin , Ilana Levinson

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 unexpected: a diversity plan. Why would the school district need such a plan and why were some parents so adamantly opposed?

School Colors Episode 1: 'There Is No Plan'

Listen · 58:40
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1096469394/1096506003" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
Coming Soon: Code Switch presents 'School Colors'
NPR

Code Switch

Coming Soon: Code Switch presents 'School Colors'

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 Winston Griffith and Max Freedman take us to Queens, N.Y. – often touted as the most racially diverse place in the world. In 2019, a Queens school district announced that they were chosen to get a "diversity plan." One reaction from local parents? Outrage.

Coming Soon: Code Switch presents 'School Colors'

Listen · 3:26
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1095625161/1095642200" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
The LA Uprising, a generation later

Authors John Cho (left) and Steph Cha (right.) Courtesy of Steph Cha and John Cho hide caption

toggle caption
Courtesy of Steph Cha and John Cho

Code Switch

The LA Uprising, a generation later

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's clear to many that April 29, 1992 made a fundamental mark on the city of Los Angeles. Now, 30 years later, we're talking to Steph Cha and John Cho — two authors whose books both center around that fateful time.

The LA Uprising, a generation later

Listen · 50:33
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1093615224/1094951219" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
Race, queerness, and superpowers in 'Everything, Everywhere, All at Once'

Michelle Yeoh stars as a woman who suddenly develops the power to leap between parallel universes in the action-adventure-fantasy Everything Everywhere All at Once. A24 hide caption

toggle caption
A24

Code Switch

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

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 thrust into a surreal, sci-fi multiverse, in the movie "Everything Everywhere All At Once." On the other side — googly eyes, talking rocks, people with hot dog hands — and an exploration of the dynamics between three generations in a Chinese immigrant family.

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

Listen · 26:36
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1093583760/1093675612" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
A makeup company gets a facelift
LA Johnson/NPR

Code Switch

A makeup company gets a facelift

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 company's meteoric rise, its slow decline, and the two women who think they can resurrect it once more.

A makeup company gets a facelift

Listen · 25:44
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1092024318/1092407097" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
A New Movement on Standing Rock
Christina Cala/NPR

Code Switch

A New Movement on Standing Rock

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 asking a couple of years ago. Young people were being harassed in public schools, and adults were worried that their kids weren't learning important tenets of Lakota culture. So finally, a group of educators and parents decided to start a brand new school, unlike any others in the region.

A New Movement on Standing Rock

Listen · 36:36
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1090825396/1091171647" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
The dance that made its way from Harlem to Sweden

LaTasha Barnes is a tradition-bearer of Black social dances, including the Lindy Hop. Cassidy Araiza for NPR hide caption

toggle caption
Cassidy Araiza for NPR

Code Switch

The dance that made its way from Harlem to Sweden

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. But today, one of the world's most vibrant Lindy Hop communities is in Sweden. So what happens when a Black American wants to learn the art form that she first encountered at the hands of her great-grandmother?

The dance that made its way from Harlem to Sweden

Listen · 43:50
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1089354646/1089438476" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
Wherefore art thou, N-word?
LA Johnson/NPR

Code Switch

Wherefore art thou, N-word?

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 (not to mention the mouths of people who use it frequently, whether as a slur or a term of endearment.) So on this episode, we're talking about what makes the word unique — and how the rules about its use line up with other words.

Wherefore art thou, N-word?

Listen · 38:12
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1087843455/1088080471" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
Unlearning anti-Blackness in therapy: 'The Buck Stops Here'
Islenia Milien for NPR

Code Switch

Unlearning anti-Blackness in therapy: 'The Buck Stops Here'

by Isabeth Mendoza

Twenty percent of American adults sought out therapy in 2020. But Grisell Valencia faced a challenge; she wanted a therapist who could respond to experiences she was dealing with as an Afro-Latina.

Unlearning anti-Blackness in therapy: 'The Buck Stops Here'

Listen · 33:08
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/255862018/1086758836" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
Screams and Silence, Revisited

Anti Asian-American hate has been on the rise, but is nothing new to the people who experience it. Hokyoung Kim for NPR hide caption

toggle caption
Hokyoung Kim for NPR

Code Switch

Screams and Silence, Revisited

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 American. That violence came after Asian American organizers had been trying, for months, to sound the alarm over a dramatic spike in reports of anti-Asian racism.

Screams and Silence, Revisited

Listen · 32:36
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1086739262/1086751038" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
What's In A Dad?

Comedian Hari Kondabolu with his son Arjun. Antoine Didienne/Courtesy of Hari Kondabolu hide caption

toggle caption
Antoine Didienne/Courtesy of Hari Kondabolu

Code Switch

What's In A Dad?

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 upbringings than their own. It's left both of them reflecting on some big questions: How will they teach their children about race? What are the elements of their childhoods that they want to pass on? And what, exactly, is a father anyway?

What's In A Dad?

Listen · 28:23
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1084003853/1085309996" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
Ice Breaker
Alaina Murphy/Blind Landing

Code Switch

Ice Breaker

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, with the help of our friends at the Blind Landing podcast, we're telling the story of Mabel Fairbanks. Fairbanks was a Black and Seminole figure skater who spent her career training figure skaters of color — while navigating the complicated racial and social dynamics that characterized the sport.

Ice Breaker

  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1083461601/1083834589" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
The rise and fall of 'America's Dad'
Michelle Rohn for NPR

Perspective

Code Switch

The rise and fall of 'America's Dad'

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, and with his image plastered on billboards, advertisements and television, many people felt like they knew him. Of course, few people really knew Bill Cosby. And many of the people who had seen who he was up close would be traumatized for the rest of their lives.

The rise and fall of 'America's Dad'

Listen · 42:05
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1082475390/1082480371" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript