Code Switch

Parenting is one of the toughest jobs in the world. Between choosing a neighborhood to live in or whether to send your kid to public school, there are a lot of decisions that feel high stakes — and sticky, especially when it comes to race. We're here to help. This week we're digging into our archives to bring you some parenting advice around some of the parenting-and-race dilemmas our listeners have faced.

This episode features advice from Cassandra Harewood, child and adolescent psychiatrist, Amy Stuart Wells, professor emeritus of sociology and education at Teachers College at Columbia University, Jenn Jackson, professor of political science at Syracuse University focusing on Blackness and gender, Mark Anthony Neal, professor of African & African American Studies at Duke University, and Gigliana Melzi, associate professor of applied psychology at New York University.

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Motherhood in the U.S. is revered. Actual mothers? Not so much. So where's a bedraggled mom to turn when she feels overworked, overwhelmed, and underappreciated? Turns out, momfluencers are stepping in to fill that void, including a particular category of momfluencer: the tradwife. We dive into that world to understand how it might intersect with the Trump administration, what it has to do with white supremacy, and where moms of color fit in.

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Over the past few weeks, there have been multiple high-profile incidents of Black men committing acts of violence against their loved ones, from a man in Shreveport killing his children, to the former Lieutenant Governor of Virginia killing himself and his wife. On this episode, we're asking: What does this violence have to do with patriarchy? What does it have to do with mental health? What does it have to do with race and gender? And what would it take to create a culture that actually protects Black women and children?

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At most elite colleges and universities, affirmative action is a thing of the past. But admissions offices are still interested in building racially diverse incoming classes — which can mean looking at students' essays to help determine their background. In those essays, Black students have been often been encouraged to write about experiences of overcoming trauma in order to help underscore their race. Our guest, the sociologist Aya Waller-Bey, says that practice has troubling implications for how we understand what it means to have an authentic Black experience.

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The Trump administration has been very candid about their disdain for all things DEI. But it's not just conservatives who have critiques. On this episode, we're talking to Jennifer C. Pan, author of Selling Social Justice: Why the Rich Love Antiracism, about why she thinks people on the left should be skeptical of DEI programs as well. We get into how DEI programs are frequently used as a tool for large corporations to assert their moral authority — without actually sacrificing their bottom line, or improving conditions for workers writ large.

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