How much reality do we want in our reality TV?
Why do Black contestants on reality TV keep getting voted out first? Like a lot of people, B.A. Parker watches reality TV to escape. But see...
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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. W...
Episodes
20 of 656 episodes
How Hollywood stole the zombie from Haiti
Zombies have roots most fans have never heard of. In Haitian Vodou, being zombified meant being enslaved even in death. B.A. Parker talks to...
The shady deals behind data centers
Clarksdale, Mississippi, the birthplace of the blues, has been losing people, jobs, and businesses for years. Now land there has been rezone...
Let’s stop pretending we desegregated schools
Seventy years after Brown v. Board of Education, Black parents still face an impossible choice about where to send their kids. Gene talks wi...
The Lindsay Clancy case and the women we make into monsters
The Lindsay Clancy trial captured the nation this summer, and reactions toward Clancy have been split. The case brought much needed attentio...
Chris Brown won't get cancelled. This is why.
When Rep. Jasmine Crockett took the stage at a Chris Brown concert to honor him, the backlash came fast. It's a familiar cycle: every few ye...
Do voters want woke?
Lots of progressive politicians eyeing runs for higher office are distancing themselves from the politics of 2020, like Congresswoman Alexan...
Is Cuba Trump's next real estate project?
Cubans are living through near-constant blackouts after an executive order that called the Cuban government an “unusual and extraordinary th...
Why can’t people be normal about the WNBA?
The WNBA is more popular than ever, but the growth has come with a lot of unwanted attention, like protests at games and death threats direc...
Why we’re all being watched
There’s a growing backlash to the surveillance systems that have quietly wired themselves into American neighborhoods, with concern growing...
25 years after 9/11, our definition of terrorism continues to expand
In the 25 years since 9/11, we've seen the definition of terrorism expand. The Trump administration has called more and more groups “terrori...
We're Miseducated on Lauryn Hill
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...
Freedom from fatness: Why GLP-1s go after Black bodies
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 “...
Banana Ball's racial minstrelsy past
Banana Ball is a barnstorming baseball league revived by the tremendously popular Savannah Bananas, a team with millions of followers on Tik...
Unpacking estrangement: Who goes No Contact?
Is there a family estrangement epidemic? This week, we dig into what’s behind the no-contact movement with sociologist Rin Reczek, author of...
Our Ancestors Were Messy: a Black history comedy show
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 thi...
Trump is demanding English — while defunding ESL
Last year President Trump made English the official language of the United States. Then his administration moved to zero out the federal mon...
Jay-Z has F-you money. Is he saying it to the wrong people?
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. T...
How farm work became the exception to Trump's border crackdown
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...
The case of a Black teen, killed after joining a protest movement
Sixteen-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. traveled a thousand miles to join the racial justice movement that erupted after George Floyd's killing. L...