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Why do Black contestants on reality TV keep getting voted out first? Like a lot of people, B.A. Parker watches reality TV to escape. But seeing contestants of color on the receiving end of microaggressions keeps pulling her back to reality. Parker

Zombies have roots most fans have never heard of. In Haitian Vodou, being zombified meant being enslaved even in death. B.A. Parker talks to Maya Annik Bedward, director of the new documentary Black Zombie, about how a spiritual metaphor for slavery

Clarksdale, Mississippi, the birthplace of the blues, has been losing people, jobs, and businesses for years. Now land there has been rezoned to make room for a hyperscale data center, a process that got underway before anyone even put the words

Seventy years after Brown v. Board of Education, Black parents still face an impossible choice about where to send their kids. Gene talks with his twin sister about the different choices they’ve made for their kids, and with historian Noliwe Rooks

The Lindsay Clancy trial captured the nation this summer, and reactions toward Clancy have been split. The case brought much needed attention to postpartum psychosis, but some question the support Clancy received from the public. This week, we speak

When Rep. Jasmine Crockett took the stage at a Chris Brown concert to honor him, the backlash came fast. It's a familiar cycle: every few years, Brown lands back in the news, and the public relitigates a history of violence stretching back to 2009

Lots of progressive politicians eyeing runs for higher office are distancing themselves from the politics of 2020, like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez declaring, "woke 1.0 was crazy." But should they be? Jamelle Bouie of The New York Times

Cubans are living through near-constant blackouts after an executive order that called the Cuban government an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security and blocked their fuel imports. A hundred-page State Department report

The WNBA is more popular than ever, but the growth has come with a lot of unwanted attention, like protests at games and death threats directed towards players. This week, we talk with independent journalist Frankie de la Cretaz about what brought

There’s a growing backlash to the surveillance systems that have quietly wired themselves into American neighborhoods, with concern growing among people who have never felt watched this way before. Gene talks with historian Matthew Guariglia about