Culture

Code Words

What I Hear When You Say is a video series that explores how words can both unite and divide us depending on our own perspective, experience, and interpretation. Each episode covers a different phrase or term that challenges what we think we know about race, class, gender, and identity.

Code Words

Season 1 Episode 8 | 6m 38s | CC

Examine the current function and long history of American’s use of “code words.” Artist Bayeté Ross Smith looks at how media shapes our perceptions. Comedian Hari Kondabolu thinks the media knows exactly what they are doing. Professor Pedro Noguera studies the history of coded language and its effects on all of us to this day.

What I Hear When You Say