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.
-
For people of color, "civility" is often a means of containing them, preventing social mobility and preserving the status quo. -
A family vacation was like planning a military campaign. In the Jim Crow era, this guide book was essential for traveling safely. -
A new biography of the African-American playwright shows that she was so much more than her most famous work: A Raisin in the Sun. -
"The best fashion show is definitely on the street — always has been and always will be." Bill Cunningham -
Photographer Bill Cunningham democratized fashion by showing that style wasn't dependent on money or status in his photos for The New York Times. He died in 2016 but had secretly written a memoir.
-
A new television series explores the 2012 killing of the 17-year-old in Sanford, Fla., and the subsequent trial that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. -
In the past few months, several white people have been recorded calling police on black people who are going about their legitimate business: mowing the lawn, using the pool, and sleeping in the dorm. -
The reports from the border this week sent a collective shudder through many Japanese American communities around the country. -
While the nation mourns the loss of the chef, writer and humanitarian, many people in communities on the margins are especially sad at the loss of a friend and champion. -
"Cesar Chavez understood that (Bobby) was one of the only white politicians — maybe the only one — who truly and instantaneously got what was going on with the farm workers." Biographer Larry Tye
