- 22 minutes 9 secondsHow the potato became an insultThe potato may be one of the world's most beloved foods but it's also an insult. In Colombia, speaking with "una papa en la boca" means you mumble — or that you're too posh. Producer Christina Cala follows the potato from Bad Bunny to the Andes to her own mother's kitchen, and finds that potato jokes are often about whose heritage gets celebrated and who gets treated like they're worth understanding.
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NPR Privacy Policy24 July 2026, 7:00 am - 33 minutes 38 secondsWith 'deed theft' scammers are targeting Black homeownersLongtime homeowners — often Black seniors — are being tricked into signing away the deeds to their own homes, then getting evicted from them. It's called deed theft, and it's rampant in gentrifying neighborhoods like Bed Stuy, where brownstones that redlining once made cheap now sell for millions. New York City Councilmember Chi Ossé and WNYC/Gothamist reporter David Brand explain how the scam works, why it targets Black homeowners, and why it's so hard to stop.
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NPR Privacy Policy21 July 2026, 7:00 am - 27 minutes 11 secondsWhy the World Cup is race and class all the way downAll good (and complicated) things must come to an end, and the World Cup is no exception. To deal with the anticipatory grief ahead of the Spain v. Argentina final, NPR World Cup and Lionel Messi expert Jasmine Garsd hops on the mic to talk all things fútbol. Lace up your limited edition pink cleats: We're talking African soccer's moment, diaspora players, colonizers vs. colonies, and what's up with race erasure on Argentina's team.
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NPR Privacy Policy17 July 2026, 7:00 am - 28 minutes 44 secondsTrump's new legal weapon for prosecuting protestorsThis summer, protesters connected to a demonstration outside the Prairieland ICE detention center in North Texas were sentenced to as much as 100 years in prison. It's the first case prosecuted under President Trump's National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which targets "extremism on migration, race, and gender" and classifies antifa as a domestic terrorism organization. What's striking is the evidence: zines, Signal messages, hosting a book club. This week, we talk with Guardian reporter Lex McMenamin about what this case could mean for dissent going forward.
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NPR Privacy Policy14 July 2026, 7:00 am - 29 minutesWhose rights just changed? Our SCOTUS debriefA lot went down this term in the Supreme Court. So, we’re breaking down the landmark SCOTUS decisions that affect Black voters, trans athletes and immigrants. B.A. Parker and Code Switch producer Jess Kung go over the outcomes of the cases we’ve been watching, and NPR’s immigration correspondent Ximena Bustillo helps us untangle the latest for immigrants.
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NPR Privacy Policy10 July 2026, 7:00 am - 33 minutes 39 secondsHow anti-DEI hit the militaryPete Hegseth's Pentagon has been dismantling diversity initiatives and blocking the promotions of high-ranking Black officers. This week, Parker talks with The Atlantic's Clint Smith, who interviewed two dozen Black service members about the long, contradictory history of Black patriotism and what it means to serve a country that has always struggled with how to honor them.
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NPR Privacy Policy7 July 2026, 7:00 am - 37 minutes 34 secondsThe story we don't tell about how this country was foundedWe 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?
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NPR Privacy Policy3 July 2026, 7:00 am - 36 minutes 9 secondsThe hunger strike ICE says never happenedHundreds 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.
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NPR Privacy Policy30 June 2026, 7:00 am - 34 minutes 42 secondsThe 'white genocide' myth is shaping immigration policySince 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.
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NPR Privacy Policy26 June 2026, 7:00 am - 34 minutes 11 secondsWhat 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.
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NPR Privacy Policy23 June 2026, 7:00 am - 34 minutes 36 secondsWhen 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.
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