When is joy actually resistance?

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1. 

   7 Jul 2026 · 34 min

   How anti-DEI hit the military

   Pete 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. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy

2. 

   3 Jul 2026 · 38 min

   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? See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy

3. 

   30 Jun 2026 · 36 min

   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. See pcm.adswizz.com for…

4. 

   26 Jun 2026 · 35 min

   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. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast…

5. 

   23 Jun 2026 · 34 min

   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. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy

6. 

   16 Jun 2026 · 34 min

   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. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and…

7. 

   12 Jun 2026 · 27 min

   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. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast…

8. 

   9 Jun 2026 · 32 min

   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? See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy

9. 

   5 Jun 2026 · 23 min

   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. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy…

10. 

    2 Jun 2026 · 34 min

    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. See pcm.adswizz.com for…