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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Turner's Wee Pals was the first nationally syndicated comic strip by a black cartoonist. It featured a rainbow tribe of young friends and gentle lessons in tolerance. -
As more and more politicians and businesses court the Hispanic/Latino demographic, there's more and more confusion about how to refer to the people who fit into it.
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President Obama and other world leaders take a "selfie" at Nelson Mandela's memorial service, and first lady Michelle Obama seems less than thrilled with the president's posing. -
Filmmaker Malcolm Lee most recently directed Best Man Holiday. His production company, Blackmaled Productions, focuses on the image of black men on-screen. -
Most politicians recognize the importance of the Latino vote, but John F. Kennedy might have been the first presidential candidate to actively court it. Viva Kennedy clubs started by former Mexican-American veterans were an important factor in Kennedy's 1960 victory. -
Speculation about her grandmother's life in China in the early 1900s provided Tan inspiration for her latest novel, out Tuesday. Valley is an opus that covers half of a tumultuous century, ranges across two continents and involves love, deceit, forgiveness and, ultimately, redemption. -
A joking Facebook post by Saddleback Church's Rick Warren was the catalyst for a pointed letter from some 700 evangelical Asian-Americans. -
The federal government remains shut down over a budget stalemate, but California's Gov. Jerry Brown decided not to wait for Congress to make decisions on the Gordian knot that is U.S. immigration policy. -
In the reboot of the TV series Ironside, Blair Underwood plays the character once played by Raymond Burr. Underwood joins a long list of able-bodied actors who portray characters with disabilities. -
Famed fashion icons Bethann Hardison, Iman and Naomi Campbell have joined a coalition that presses for more diverse representation on the runway. The group has sent a letter to the governing bodies of the fashion world calling out specific designers for their lack of diversity.
