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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The 1992 Los Angeles riots left more than 50 people dead and destroyed an estimated $1 billion in property all over the city. NPR explores how people in LA think of the riots 25 years later and why the event is still relevant.
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This week 25 years ago, policemen were acquitted in the savage beating of African-American Rodney King. Five days of riots, arson and looting ensued, fueled by deep-rooted tensions that persist today.
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The Women's March on Washington is seen as a march for women's unity. But the often-fractious relationship between white feminists and women of color is giving rise to tensions.
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In Charcoal Joe, Mosley brings his iconic private eye Easy Rawlins into the haze of the late '60s, extending a literary odyssey through the transformation of black Los Angeles.
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Ebony and Jet were once recognized worldwide as chroniclers of the black American experience — especially black achievement. Johnson Publishing is selling the magazines to black venture capitalists.
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Once Morris Robinson dreamed of fame on the football field. Now, he's moving audiences across the world with the power of his voice, and changing the face of opera.
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The second mystery by Mette Ivie Harrison boasts details about contemporary Mormon life that most of us aren't privy to. NPR's Karen Grigsby Bates says His Right Hand is is her "one that got away."
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ABC will air the final episode of its hit comedy Black-ish Wednesday night before the season ends for holiday break. Although the show focuses on the upper-middle class Johnson family, its storylines cross race, ethnicity, gender, geography and age. And it's acquired a real following that reflects that. NPR talks with showrunner Kenya Barris and his writers about making a specific experience universal.
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Advertising for products to treat symptoms of menopause is becoming much more upfront about issues like painful sex. But more than a few of the remedies are solutions in search of a problem.
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Decades ago, few cosmetic companies manufactured make-up for women of color. Changing demographics has changed this, and now even high-end companies have adjusted to a new, more colorful reality.