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Code Switch
30 episodes
Jay-Z has F-you money. Is he saying it to the wrong people?
Aug 14, 2026 · 31 min
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 p…
How farm work became the exception to Trump's border crackdown
Aug 11, 2026 · 33 min
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 podcas…
The case of a Black teen, killed after joining a protest movement
Aug 7, 2026 · 35 min
Sixteen-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. traveled a thousand miles to join the racial justice movement that erupted after George Floyd's killing. Less than a week after he arrived in Seattle in the summer of 2020 — landing in the middle of the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, known as CHOP — he was shot and killed. The case remains unsolved. This week we're bringing you the first episode in an eight-part series from Sydney Brownstone of The Seattle Times and Will James of KUOW, investigating Antonio's de…
An anti-KKK law is being used to sue the Trump admin. Will it work?
Aug 4, 2026 · 31 min
Mahmoud Khalil is suing the Trump administration, alleging a "public-private conspiracy" to punish him for pro-Palestinian speech. The law he's using dates back to 1871 — it's called the Ku Klux Klan Act. It's the same statute civil rights attorney Randolph McLaughlin used in the 1980s when he become one of the first lawyers to successfully sue the Klan. McLaughlin walks us through how that Reconstruction-era law has been used against the KKK, Unite the Right, and maybe next against ICE. Support…
Work does not deserve your full self
Jul 31, 2026 · 44 min
"Be vulnerable." "We love your authenticity." "Bring your full self to work." Sound familiar? In this episode, we talk to Jodi-Ann Burey, author of Authentic: The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work, about why you should absolutely NOT do those things at work -- especially if you're a Black woman. 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
Inside the culty white supremacists the feds are ignoring
Jul 28, 2026 · 31 min
Patriot Front is a white nationalist group that focuses on high visibility stunts, like banner drops, disrupting events, or swarming Washington, DC for Independence Day. Meanwhile, the State Department has convened 60 nations against what it calls far-left terrorism. We talk to NPR’s Odette Yousef about who the guys in Patriot Front actually are, why their finances resemble a pyramid scheme selling stickers and stencils, and what it means that the federal government is aiming its counterterroris…
How the potato became an insult
Jul 24, 2026 · 22 min
The potato may be one of the world's most beloved foods but it's also an insult. In Colombia, speaking with "una papa en la boca" means you mumble — or that you're too posh. Producer Christina Cala follows the potato from Bad Bunny to the Andes to her own mother's kitchen, and finds that potato jokes are often about whose heritage gets celebrated and who gets treated like they're worth understanding. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorshi…
With 'deed theft' scammers are targeting Black homeowners
Jul 21, 2026 · 34 min
Longtime homeowners — often Black seniors — are being tricked into signing away the deeds to their own homes, then getting evicted from them. It's called deed theft, and it's rampant in gentrifying neighborhoods like Bed Stuy, where brownstones that redlining once made cheap now sell for millions. New York City Councilmember Chi Ossé and WNYC/Gothamist reporter David Brand explain how the scam works, why it targets Black homeowners, and why it's so hard to stop. See pcm.adswizz.com for informati…
Why the World Cup is race and class all the way down
Jul 17, 2026 · 27 min
All good (and complicated) things must come to an end, and the World Cup is no exception. To deal with the anticipatory grief ahead of the Spain v. Argentina final, NPR World Cup and Lionel Messi expert Jasmine Garsd hops on the mic to talk all things fútbol. Lace up your limited edition pink cleats: We're talking African soccer's moment, diaspora players, colonizers vs. colonies, and what's up with race erasure on Argentina's team. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and us…
Trump's new legal weapon for prosecuting protestors
Jul 14, 2026 · 29 min
This summer, protesters connected to a demonstration outside the Prairieland ICE detention center in North Texas were sentenced to as much as 100 years in prison. It's the first case prosecuted under President Trump's National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which targets "extremism on migration, race, and gender" and classifies antifa as a domestic terrorism organization. What's striking is the evidence: zines, Signal messages, hosting a book club. This week, we talk with Guardian reporter…
Whose rights just changed? Our SCOTUS debrief
Jul 10, 2026 · 29 min
A lot went down this term in the Supreme Court. So, we’re breaking down the landmark SCOTUS decisions that affect Black voters, trans athletes and immigrants. B.A. Parker and Code Switch producer Jess Kung go over the outcomes of the cases we’ve been watching, and NPR’s immigration correspondent Ximena Bustillo helps us untangle the latest for immigrants. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship prefe…
How anti-DEI hit the military
Jul 7, 2026 · 34 min
Pete Hegseth's Pentagon has been dismantling diversity initiatives and blocking the promotions of high-ranking Black officers. This week, Parker talks with The Atlantic's Clint Smith, who interviewed two dozen Black service members about the long, contradictory history of Black patriotism and what it means to serve a country that has always struggled with how to honor them. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcas…
The story we don't tell about how this country was founded
Jul 3, 2026 · 38 min
We have been told the American Revolution was fought over taxation and representation. But the last entry of the Declaration of Independence focuses on the founding fathers' contempt for quote merciless Indian savages unquote. On this July 4th, the 250th anniversary of its founding, Rebecca Nagle, host of the new podcast First America asks: How did an entire country miss a major point of its founding document? See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for…
The hunger strike ICE says never happened
Jun 30, 2026 · 36 min
Hundreds of people detained at an ICE detention center in Newark, NJ refused to eat and work for a month. They were protesting the conditions inside — spoiled food, lack of medical care, overcrowding. The detainees are the ones who actually keep the facility running — cooking, cleaning, doing laundry — all while getting paid a dollar a day. This week, two reporters who have been covering the strikes, José Olivares and Sophie Hurwitz, talk about what happens when detainees stop eating and working…
The 'white genocide' myth is shaping immigration policy
Jun 26, 2026 · 35 min
Since October 2025, the U.S. has admitted more than 6,000 refugees — and all but three are white South Africans. The Trump administration says Afrikaners are fleeing a "genocide." They're not. This week, we look at how we got here: a conversation with a reporter who was in the Oval Office when Trump pushed this conspiracy theory on South Africa's president — and what his fixation on white South Africans reveals about anxieties over white replacement here in the U.S. See pcm.adswizz.com for infor…
What happens if the US ends birthright citizenship?
Jun 23, 2026 · 34 min
Any day now, the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the Trump administration’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship. But beyond the ruling, the fight for who belongs in a country is much older and broader than the United States. Gene talks with Daisy Hernández, the author of Citizenship: Notes on an American Myth, about what we can learn from both other nations’ and our own history about where we might be headed. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of pe…
When is joy actually resistance?
Jun 19, 2026 · 35 min
Joy is not a crumb. It's cookouts with soul music, celebrating what Ossie Davis called the full sweetness of our Blackness. But what exactly does the phrase "joy is resistance," which has been flooding social media, mean? This Juneteenth, we're asking what joy actually is, when it can be a tool for social change, and why the slogan has become so popular -- even when joy itself feels more tenuous. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship an…
Obama's new Presidential Center and his tricky relationship with the South Side
Jun 16, 2026 · 34 min
After nearly 10 years of planning and construction, the Obama Presidential Center is opening on the South Side of Chicago — right across the street from an under-resourced high school, in a segregated neighborhood where home prices have jumped. Who is the Center for, and what will it mean for the people who live there? We get into it with two South Siders who've covered the Center for years — journalist Natalie Moore and the Invisible Institute's Maira Khwaja — about the Chi's tricky relationshi…
Why being Black and outdoorsy is a whole thing
Jun 12, 2026 · 27 min
A viral video of a young Black man frolicking in an Oregon meadow sent B.A. Parker looking for a deeper answer: what does it take for people of color to feel safe outdoors? We dive into the racist history of what it means to be a Black person outside -- and why that complicates people's relationship today to the outdoors. Parkers talks with the self-described "Black frolicker" Daniyel and Pamela Slaughter of the Oregon-based nonprofit People of Color Outdoors. See pcm.adswizz.com for information…
Trump's 'weaponization' fund steals reparations blueprint
Jun 9, 2026 · 32 min
The DOJ created a $1.776 billion fund to compensate January 6 defendants. The fund may not survive, but the federal redress system it was reaching into — built by Native nations over generations — is still intact. So today on Code Switch: who counts as having been harmed by the state? 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
Pete Hegseth's American crusade
Jun 5, 2026 · 23 min
It’s no secret that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has embraced the idea of crusading for American dominance — he published a book titled American Crusade and has several tattoos of crusader iconography. And that language has become a part of how Hegseth talks about the U.S. war with Iran. B.A. Parker talks to the religion scholar Matthew Taylor about Hegseth’s corner of Christianity and its connection with Christian nationalism. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and us…
DACA recipients are trapped in Trump's limbo
Jun 2, 2026 · 34 min
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program has been around for almost 14 years — long enough that the so-called "DACA kids" are now middle-aged adults with jobs, mortgages and families. But the Trump administration is making it harder to hold onto the only legal status they've ever had: slowing down processing, stripping benefits, and detaining and even deporting some recipients. This week, NPR's Ximena Bustillo takes us to Arizona to meet people living in limbo, and asks what it means t…
The trans athlete debate is about a lot more than sports
May 30, 2026 · 32 min
The Supreme Court is about to rule on whether states can ban transfeminine student athletes from playing on girls' and women's teams. But we're talking to journalist Imara Jones about why these cases aren't just about school sports. They come out of a massive wave of state-level anti-trans legislation that Imara says is part of a broader movement to undermine discrimination protections — by going after the small, vulnerable minority of trans girls. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our c…
It's giving incel: The evolution of internet slang
May 27, 2026 · 24 min
How have recommendation algorithms affected language? Linguist Adam Aleksic — aka the Etymology Nerd — says most “Gen-Z slang” is either appropriated from Black people or incels. This week, we trace how -maxxing went from the eugenicist looksmaxxing subculture to trending TikToks to the Pentagon tweeting about “lethality maxxing.” And we ask what’s actually at stake when we use words without knowing where they come from. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of persona…
Why so many Americans never learned to swim
May 23, 2026 · 36 min
In the U.S., roughly 8 in 10 kids from lower-income households grow up with few or no swimming skills — and Black and Latino children lag behind their white peers. Those gaps aren't an accident. They trace back to a long history of segregated public pools, and to fears of the water that have been passed down through generations. This week, we follow Jasmine Romero, who in her mid-thirties walked into a room full of four- and five-year-olds to take her first swim class, determined to break the cy…
Why do Latinos join ICE?
May 20, 2026 · 33 min
Latinos make up at least 50% of all Customs and Border Patrol agents and 20% of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — which has a lot of critics asking, why? We talk to Geraldo Cadava, professor of Latino Studies at Northwestern and contributor to the Atlantic, to break down some of the reasons Latinos join ICE, and he tells us, there are many people who believe in the mission of immigration enforcement. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for…
Is astrology real? Depends who you ask
May 16, 2026 · 31 min
Happy tenth birthday to us! In true Gemini fashion - we're that sign - we're celebrating by exploring our duality through astrology. Our intrepid Aquarius, B.A. Parker, talks to an astrologer and a science writer - a true believer and a real skeptic - about why Black and Latina women are twice as likely as men to believe in astrology. She also finds out what's written in the stars for the show. Spoiler alert: our birth chart is cute. And we are ready to be outside! See pcm.adswizz.com for inform…
What the Savannah Bananas have to do with race and baseball
May 13, 2026 · 27 min
Ever heard of the Savannah Bananas? They're a baseball team with millions of followers on TikTok and Instagram — known as much for their dance routines and shenanigans as their actual baseball. Now their league, Banana Ball, has resurrected the Indianapolis Clowns, a Negro League team with a contentious history of racial minstrelsy. We chop it up with journalist Josh Levin, who followed the Clowns through their Banana Ball debut. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use o…
How the Supreme Court gutted Black voting power
May 9, 2026 · 22 min
The passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act marked what many historians mark as the actual beginning of democracy in the US. But last week the Supreme Court gutted what was left of the landmark civil rights law. NPR's Hansi Lo Wang joins us to talk through what it means for Black political power, especially in the South. 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
The minefields of parenting and race
May 6, 2026 · 33 min
Parenting is one of the toughest jobs in the world. Between choosing a neighborhood to live in or whether to send your kid to public school, there are a lot of decisions that feel high stakes — and sticky, especially when it comes to race. We're here to help. This week we're digging into our archives to bring you some parenting advice around some of the parenting-and-race dilemmas our listeners have faced. This episode features advice from Cassandra Harewood, child and adolescent psychiatrist, A…
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