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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. 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.

Want to level up your Code Switch game? Try Code Switch Plus. Your subscription supports the show and unlocks a sponsor-free feed. Learn more at plus.npr.org/codeswitch
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Code Switch

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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.

Want to level up your Code Switch game? Try Code Switch Plus. Your subscription supports the show and unlocks a sponsor-free feed. Learn more at plus.npr.org/codeswitch

Most Recent Episodes

Notes from America: 'Blackness (Un)interrupted'

"Racial imposter syndrome" is definitely "a thing," for many people. Shereen and Gene hear from biracial and multi-ethnic listeners who connect with feeling "fake" or inauthentic in some part of their racial or ethnic heritage. Social scientists weigh in the need basic need for belonging. Kristen Uroda for NPR hide caption

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Kristen Uroda for NPR

Notes from America: 'Blackness (Un)interrupted'

So many of our perceptions of race have to do with color. How does that change if you've lived in both Black and white skin? Our Executive Producer Veralyn Williams, explores this question in conversation with her sister, Lovis. Lovis has vitiligo, a skin disease that causes loss of skin color in patches.

Notes from America: 'Blackness (Un)interrupted'

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How American Indian family separation leaves impacts generations later
NPR

How American Indian family separation leaves impacts generations later

Bear Carrillo grew up knowing only a few details about his birth parents: when he was born they were university students, the first from their tribes to go to college, and they just couldn't afford to keep him. Decades later, a DNA test kit uncovers a new story.

A lost bird, a found treasure

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Live from Chicago: What makes a city home?
Atlan Arceo-Witzl for NPR

Live from Chicago: What makes a city home?

This episode is excerpted from the Code Switch Live show at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago, featuring special guests José Olivarez, Sultan Salahuddin, Diallo Riddle and Adriana Cardona-Maguidad to talk all about Chicago. Musical guest KAINA provides music!

Live from Chicago: What makes a city home?

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Throughline: How Korean culture went global

Korean band BTS appears at the daily press briefing with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, in the Brady Press Briefing of the White House in Washington, DC, May 31, 2022. SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Throughline: How Korean culture went global

From BTS to Squid Game to high-end beauty standards, South Korea reigns as a global exporter of pop culture and entertainment. How does a country go from a war-decimated state just 70 years ago, to a major driver of global soft power? Through war, occupation, economic crisis, and national strategy, comes a global phenomenon - the Korean wave. This is an episode from our play cousins Throughline and originally aired September 8th, 2022.

Throughline: How Korean culture went global

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Code Switch fam! Say hello to It's Been a Minute's new host, Brittany Luse!
Sarah Jacobs

Code Switch fam! Say hello to It's Been a Minute's new host, Brittany Luse!

Code Switch's host B.A. Parker, introduces us to our play cousin It's Been a Minute's new voice, Brittany Luse! In Brittany's first two episodes she talks about the representation and contextual history of Black women in politics and Hollywood.

Code Switch fam! Say hello to It's Been a Minute's new host, Brittany Luse!

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Fear, Halloween and the real-life horrors of the past
Cindy Ord/Getty Images

Fear, Halloween and the real-life horrors of the past

It's that time of year again: celebrations of the macabre hit a little too close to home and brush up against our country's very dark past. We talk about navigating fake horror amid what's actually terrifying and how scaring ourselves, on purpose, can help us. This episode first ran in October 2019.

Fear, Halloween and the real-life horrors of the past

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Skeletons in the closet, revisited

A young Native American woman sits in a museum display case alongside artifacts and human remains. Gabriella Trujillo for NPR hide caption

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Gabriella Trujillo for NPR

Skeletons in the closet, revisited

More than 10,000 Native human remains are currently sitting in a storage facility in a Maryland suburb. This week, how one small tribe is fighting to get them back to Florida. This episode originally aired October 13, 2021.

Skeletons in the closet, revisited

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Black reality in a world of fantasy

Authors Tochi Onyebuchi (left) and Leslye Penelope (right) share their experiences building fantasy worlds in their latest sci-fi novels Goliath and The Monsters We Defy. PR Agency hide caption

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PR Agency

Black reality in a world of fantasy

Why build a fantasy world that still has racism? B.A. Parker moderates a discussion on Black science fiction and fantasy with authors Tochi Onyebuchi and Leslye Penelope at the National Book Festival.

Black reality in a world of fantasy

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Omar Apollo on making music and being a role model for queer Latinx kids

Omar Apollo Art by Sasha Fominskaya by NPR/Photo courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Art by Sasha Fominskaya by NPR/Photo courtesy of the artist

Omar Apollo on making music and being a role model for queer Latinx kids

NPR's Alt.Latino gets a reboot, and for its first episode, they speak with R&B darling Omar Apollo. Apollo shares what it's been like being a role model for queer Latinx kids and the pressure of having to watch what he says now that he's famous.

Omar Apollo on making music and being a role model for queer Latinx kids

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Rolling the dice on race in Dungeons & Dragons
Thumy Phan for NPR

Rolling the dice on race in Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons is one of the most popular tabletop roleplaying 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. We take a deep dive into that game, and what we find about racial stereotypes and colonialist supremacy is illuminating.

Rolling the dice on race in Dungeons & Dragons

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