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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

The story we don't tell about how this country was founded

The story we don't tell about how this country was founded

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?

What Native people have to do with the American Revolution

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The hunger strike ICE says never happened
Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)

The hunger strike ICE says never happened

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 — and what it means that the government insists none of it is happening.

The hunger strike ICE says never happened

Listen · 36:09
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The 'white genocide' myth is shaping immigration policy

The 'white genocide' myth is shaping immigration policy

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.

The 'white genocide' myth is shaping immigration policy

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What happens if the US ends birthright citizenship?
Al Drago/Getty Images

What happens if the US ends birthright citizenship?

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.

What happens if the US ends birthright citizenship?

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When is joy actually resistance?
Jackie Lay

When is joy actually resistance?

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.

When is joy actually resistance?

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A collage of Barack Obama, a statue of him, kids walking to school, and his new Presidential Center, a rectangular facade with text texturing the top left corner.
Jackie Lay/NPR

Obama's new Presidential Center and his tricky relationship with the South Side

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 relationship with the president who claims them.

Obama's new Presidential Center and his tricky relationship with the South Side

Listen · 34:06
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Why being Black and outdoorsy is a whole thing
Jackie Lay

Why being Black and outdoorsy is a whole thing

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.

Why being Black and outdoorsy is a whole thing

Listen · 26:53
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Trump's 'weaponization' fund steals reparations blueprint
Photo by Kent NISHIMURA / AFP via Getty Images)

Trump's 'weaponization' fund steals reparations blueprint

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?

Trump's 'weaponization' fund steals reparations blueprint

Listen · 31:57
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Pete Hegseth's American crusade
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Pete Hegseth's American crusade

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.

Pete Hegseth's American crusade

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DACA recipients are trapped in Trump's limbo

DACA recipients are trapped in Trump's limbo

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 to build an entire life on a permit that expires every two years.

DACA recipients are trapped in Trump's limbo

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