Code Switch

This week, the NFL is gearing up for the start of its 104th season. But as this new chapter begins, we're looking at some of the league's old problems with race and diversity — ones that have implications for the coaches, the players, and the fans.

Bad Bunny, the genre- and gender norm-defying Puerto Rican rapper, is one of the biggest music stars on the planet. He has also provided a global megaphone for Puerto Rican discontent. In this episode, we take a look at how Bad Bunny became the unlikely voice of resistance in Puerto Rico. This episode originally aired in January 2023.

When a comedian of color makes a joke, is it always about race, even if it's not about race? Code Switch talks to comedians Aparna Nancherla, Brian Bahe and Maz Jobrani about how and why race makes an appearance in their jokes. Plus, one of our own reveals her early-career dabbling in comedy.

When Richard J. Lonsinger's birth mother passed away in 2010, he wasn't included in the distribution of her estate. Feeling hurt and excluded, he asked a judge to re-open her estate, to give him a part of one particular asset: an Osage headright. But the more Lonsinger learned about the history of the headrights, the more he began to wonder who was really entitled to them, and where he fit in.

For hip-hop's not-official-but-kind-of-official 50th birthday, we dig into its many contradictions. From the legend of the South Bronx block party where hip-hop was born to the multi-billion-dollar global industry and tool for U.S. diplomacy it has become, America's relationship with hip-hop — and the people who make it — is complicated.

For hip-hop's not-official-but-kind-of-official 50th birthday, we dig into its many contradictions. From the legend of the South Bronx block party where hip-hop was born to the multi-billion-dollar global industry and tool for U.S. diplomacy it has become, America's relationship with hip-hop — and the people who make it — is complicated.

Dungeons & Dragons is one of the most popular tabletop role-playing 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. This week we revisit a deep dive into that game. What we find about racial stereotypes and colonialist supremacy is illuminating.

There are race books, and there are beach reads, and never the twain shall meet. You know that old truism, right? Well, this is Code Switch (the show about race and identity and romance and drama from NPR), and we weren't willing to accept that dichotomy. So on this episode, we're bringing you a bouquet of our favorite summer thrillers, love stories, memoirs and more — all of which have something to say about race.

Gene Demby and NPR's Huo Jingnan dive into a conspiracy theory about how "global elites" are forcing people to eat bugs. And no huge surprise — the theory's popularity is largely about its loudest proponents' racist fear-mongering.

Brian de los Santos always thought of Mexico as his "home" — despite not having been able to return to his country of birth for three decades. But when he finally got a chance to visit, his conception of what home was and where he belonged totally shifted.