It's Been A Minute Presents: Code Switch

It's Been a Minute

NPR

News, Religion & Spirituality, News Commentary, Spirituality, Society & Culture

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🗓️ 28 April 2020

⏱️ 36 minutes

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Summary

The United States government has changed its definition of who counts as black throughout the years and the census is proof of that. During the very first census in 1790, it was simply "slaves." Now, in 2020, it's "Black or African American," with the option to write in a country of origin. This week, we share an episode from the Code Switch podcast about the ever-shifting boundaries of blackness and why it matters to this decade's census.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey y'all Sam Sanders here on today's episode of It's Been a Minute, some special reporting
0:07.8	from my friends over at CodeSwitch.
0:10.7	So CodeSwitch has been digging into the 2020 census for the last month or so to try and
0:15.3	answer the question, who counts in 2020?
0:18.9	We're going to share now with you one of those episodes.
0:22.4	This one is about a big tricky version of that question, who counts as black?
0:28.2	Which got into this question by asking who would qualify for reparations?
0:33.0	You know, if that were to ever happen.
0:35.0	One expert estimates that reparations here in the US could cost at least $10 trillion.
0:42.1	So when it comes to that much money, when that much is at stake, of course a lot of folks
0:46.5	are going to be really invested in figuring out who is, quote unquote, really black and
0:52.0	who should receive a payout or not.
0:54.2	Okay, you can catch all of CodeSwitch's episodes about the census and also other reporting
0:58.7	they've done on how coronavirus is affecting communities of color.
1:02.5	All of that is in their feed.
1:04.4	But now I will let CodeSwitch host Shrine Marisol Maragi and Jean Demby my play cousins.
1:10.6	Take things away on ours.
1:12.7	Okay, enjoy.
1:18.0	I'm Shrine Marisol Maragi.
1:20.0	I'm Jean Demby and this is CodeSwitch from NPR.
1:23.8	This week we're talking about this big unwieldy category that we normally just call Black.
1:29.6	Identify as a black male.
	...

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