Karen Grigsby Bates
Karen Grigsby Bates is the Senior Correspondent for Code Switch, a podcast that reports on race and ethnicity. A veteran NPR reporter, Bates covered race for the network for several years before becoming a founding member of the Code Switch team. She is especially interested in stories about the hidden history of race in America—and in the intersection of race and culture. She oversees much of Code Switch's coverage of books by and about people of color, as well as issues of race in the publishing industry. Bates is the co-author of a best-selling etiquette book (Basic Black: Home Training for Modern Times) and two mystery novels; she is also a contributor to several anthologies of essays. She lives in Los Angeles and reports from NPR West.
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Vernon Jordan, for years an influential power broker in Washington and a close advisor to former President Bill Clinton, has died at 85.
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Lawrence C. Ross, author of The Divine Nine, explains why Black sororities showed up and showed out for Kamala Harris—and how Black Greek organizations have long pushed for enfranchisement. -
The fashion world, like many industries and institutions, is experiencing a reckoning on race. What brought the industry to this moment?
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Before 2020, the Karen was known by other names. NPR's Code Switchlooks at the evolution of the entitled white woman, how her name has changed, but her behavior – and its consequences – not so much.
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Born Barbara Elaine Smith, she began her career as a model and went on to gain fame and influence as a restaurateur, celebrity chef, lifestyle doyenne and entertainer.
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Chinese filmmakers began making movies about the lives of the Chinese in America since World War I. And there's a direct line from them to some of Sunday's critically acclaimed Chinese American films.
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Claims of racism are at the heart of a scandal within the organization Romance Writers of America — a powerful industry group with a lot more going for it than heaving bosoms and swarthy pirates.
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What's old is new. From ingredients to techniques, chefs are playing with that most traditional of comfort foods: lasagna. We dig in to what's between the layers from nonna to nouveau.
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Diahann Carroll died Friday at 84. Carroll was a Broadway, night club, and Hollywood singer and actress when NBC asked her to star in the sitcom Julia, as the first non-stereotyped Black character.
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Morrison was the author of Beloved, Song of Solomonand The Bluest Eye. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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100 years ago this week, some of the bloodiest race riots this country has ever experienced erupted in more than two dozen cities, including Chicago. It was known as the Red Summer.
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For more than a century the Chicago Defender has chronicled Black life in America. After Wednesday it will cease its print editions.
