Code Switch

On this episode, we're hanging out with pups. First, is Kat's anxious dog Samson really just a little beagle bigot? Then, the author Bronwen Dickey and the political scientist Michael Tesler explain how the pitbull transformed from America's most beloved sidekick to a doggo non grata.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Gene and Shereen talk to poet Denice Frohman, percussionist Bobby Sanabria, chef Marcus Samuelsson and comedian Ashley Nicole Black at Harlem's World Famous Apollo Theater in New York City.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The news item about the shooting was bare: one man shot another 17 times in a dispute over drugs. The actual story — of a family that feared for its safety but who couldn't rely on the police for help — was far more complicated.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

We know where your mind's going to be this week: midterm election results!!! So, we're handing the reins over to our play cousins from NPR's Politics Podcast. They'll tell you what happened and what it all means.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Ron Brown High School was built on a novel notion: a school for boys of color, based on a model of restorative justice. We visited the school last year for several episodes to follow its first-ever freshman class. This week, we're going back to see whether the school's unique approach to education is bearing fruit.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This week: why people don't vote, why people can't vote, and two state races that might have national implications for 2020.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

So "The Star-Spangled Banner" is kind of a mess: notoriously tough to sing and with some weird stanzas about slavery. This week, we're looking at two of the country's other anthems with their own messy histories to find out what those songs tell us about American ideals.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This week, we're handing the mic over to transracial adoptees. They told us what they think is missing from mainstream narratives about adoption, and how being an adoptee is an identity unto itself.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Decades before Christine Blasey-Ford testified before lawmakers, the country had another reckoning with sexual misconduct set against the backdrop of a Supreme Court nomination. This week: what we have — and haven't — learned in the years since the Anita Hill hearings about identity politics, sexual harassment and power.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The reckoning that is reshaping Hollywood is finally making its way to the critic's perch. Bilal Qureshi joins us to talk about exciting movies coming this fall, and who gets to judge.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Long before Hurricane Maria devastated the territory, the threat of financial disaster loomed over Puerto Rico. Now, an old, bitter struggle over who gets to chart the islands' economic future is upending life for everyday Puerto Ricans trying to pick up the pieces.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

For better or worse, classrooms have always been a site where our country's racial issues get worked out — whether its integration, busing, learning about this country's sordid racial history. On today's Ask Code Switch, we're talking about fitting in, standing out, and standing up for what you believe in.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In a unanimous decision, India's Supreme Court struck down a long-standing ban on gay sex. In light of this, we're revisiting an episode about same-sex love and dating apps for South Asians.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Prodigy made up half of the hugely influential hip-hop duo Mobb Deep, but spent his life in excruciating pain due to a debilitating disease called sickle cell anemia. On this episode, the hosts of WNYC's The Realness podcast chronicle Prodigy's struggle with the disease, share the story of how the disease was discovered, and explain how black revolutionaries pressed their communities (and the President of the United States) to do something about it.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In recent weeks, rumors of a recording of President Trump using the N-Word have resurfaced. But critics have been describing Trump as racist for years. So, if this tape were to exist, would it even matter?Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Shereen and Gene head to Alabama to talk about race in the American South. Mayor Randall Woodfin of Birmingham talks about growing up in the shadow of his city's history. The poet Ashley M. Jones shares how she learned to love her hometown. And Gigi Douban of WBHM takes on some tough listener questions about race in the Magic City.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It's a battle that's endured throughout so much of American history: what gets written into our textbooks. Today we tag in NPR education correspondent Anya Kamenetz, and hear from author James Loewen about the book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

What is the "Standard American Accent"? Where is it from? And what does it mean if you don't have it? Code Switch goes on a trip to the Midwest to find out.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

We're back this week with the grand finale of the Word Watch Game Show! First, we'll uncover the messy history of the term "white trash." Then we'll get into a ditty that signals ... anything "Asian." Come play with us!Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

English is full of words and phrases with hidden racial backstories. Can you guess their histories? On part one of this two-part episode, we're unpacking the meaning behind "guru" and "boy."Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy