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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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. -
The 13th Annual U.S. Sumo Open took place over the weekend, bringing contestants from around the country and even the world. Some don't fit the traditional Sumo profile as amateur Sumo becomes increasingly diverse.
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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. -
Two new books published Tuesday tell the story of Harlem. The first features the white women involved in the Harlem Renaissance. And the second profiles three black female artists during World War II.
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That sweltering August day in 1963, when almost a quarter-million people thronged the National Mall, women were relegated to the background, even as they played major roles in the movement. -
After an editor asked him to tone down his racial politics, the first-time author walked away from his book deal, moved to a smaller press and eventually published two books to critical acclaim. He hopes his story helps make the case for why publishers should welcome different voices to the table. -
James Van Dyke Evers was only 3 when his father, civil rights leader Medgar Evers, was shot and killed in the family's driveway. Van Evers chose not to follow in his father's footsteps — at what cost?
