The Queer Arabs

Nahid is a Sudanese artist and activist with a background in theater, music, education, and human rights work.  Nahid talks about her current experience caretaking for her grandmother and how skills from working with children transfer to elder care.  She also discusses her childhood experience of displacement, moving from Sudan to Yemen and then Western Massachusetts following her father's persecution and torture for his human rights advocacy under the Bashir regime. Nahid recounts her early experiences in the arts, being introduced to political theater at an early age, and then being one of the few people of color and “not…

Clarissa Bitar is an accomplished Palestinian oud musician and composer hailing from Los Angeles, California. With a background in Music and a specialization in Ethnomusicology from UC Santa Barbara, Clarissa’s musical journey has been enriched by training under esteemed Arab oudists such as Simon Shaheen, Charbel Rouhana, and Bassam Saba. Their performances have graced stages across the United States and internationally. On this episode, Clarissa talks about growing up playing guitar, falling in love with the oud in college, and gradually switching from a biology major to ethnomusicology major to a working musician.  Clarissa's latest song ‘Leh' is coming out…

Bijhan Agha is a trans Persian-American comic artist living in Uruguay, and second-time podcast guest! This time, she joined us to talk about her latest superhero comic “The Legendary X-Knights” for which the Kickstarter comes out today! “The Legendary X-Knights” is about a group of diverse people working together to defeat monsters. They are all brought together by messages from the future which guide them in a war against Vampirekind. They get their powers from colored crystals which translate their emotions—especially those typically considered negative—into physical armor and weapons. We discuss the unique power of comics to reach both children…

Sheyam Ghieth is an artist, organizer, Egyptian propagandist, and repeat podcast guest after 4 years!  Sheyam is a co-founder of Creators for Gaza, a SWANA-led mutual-aid network connecting artists and amplifiers with Palestinian families facing genocide. Check it out to donate or get involved as an artist! They also discuss their work drawing connections between disease and colonialism in genocidal states, building COVID-19 and Palestine solidarity, especially in the face of mask bans meant to attack pro-Palestine protesters. This work includes their Zine “mask up we need you” (in collaboration with @rimo_skyo). We also talk about how we're showing up…

We're back with an episode with Alia, Ellie, and Nadia talking about: – An incredible show Nadia saw called LINES about the interconnected histories of Palestine, Uganda, and the UK through prison systems  – Participating in Palestine protests and college encampments around us (and how college students are doing a better job of building a movement as they go than most of us) – Why protests and direct action can sometimes be *good* for mental health, actually – Nadia's organizing work with @dancers_for_palestine – Anti-BDS laws, anti-protest laws, and anti-bail fund laws across the US – Alia goes to @laylitparty…

Hannah Moushabeck is a second-generation Palestinian American author, editor, and book marketer. She is the author of Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine, a children's book about three girls who experience Palestine through bedtime stories. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts on the homelands of the Pocumtuc and Nipmuc Nations. Hannah talks about growing up in  New York, Massachusetts, and the UK while her family ran an Arab independent publishing house. She discusses how representation in children's books has and hasn't changed since her childhood, with a clear uptick in queer stories but very few Palestinian stories. Hannah recounts the variety…

Yaffa is a trans displaced Palestinian activist, engineer, death and birthing doula, peer support specialist, and artist. They are the Executive Director of Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity and recently released their book of poetry Blood Orange, raising funds for queer and trans Palestinian work.  In this episode, Yaffa reads a poem from Blood Orange, and we reflect on the cognitive dissonance of diaspora, wondering “which cut from your paycheck killed your cousin.” Yaffa discusses their work in peer support, and how we can find alternatives to an individualized, compartmentalized, escapist framing of self care, witnessing each other’s…

Lamya H., author of Hijab Butch Blues, joined us for a wonderful episode! Lamya talks about the line between invisibility and hypervisibility as a brown person in hijab in the US, alternatively overlooked or policed. She discusses her path into Queer Muslim community as well as her mixed experiences in both Arab and Desi spaces as someone born in a South Asian country who grew up in the Gulf. We also talk about the differences between culturally- and religiously-specific queer communities and the issues with policing borders around identity.  They also mention how quickly Queer Muslim communities have become more…

Finlay Sarafa McHale is a queer Iraqi/Chaldean-American clinical social worker currently facilitating a free peer support group for queer SWANA people. They joined us for a wonderful conversation about how mental healthcare can be a tool for political liberation rather than means of detaching from it.  Finlay discusses censorship and Zionism in the mental health field, the challenges of developing culturally responsive practices in a profession with white-centric roots, and the myth of therapy as apolitical. They explain how traditionally strict expectations of “non-disclosure” regarding therapists' personal or political perspectives can widen the power gap between therapist and client and…

Leila Mire is a PhD candidate in Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, as well as a dancer, choreographer, organizer, and sometimes disorganized person. She researches Palestinian dance and the role of dance in US and Israeli cultural imperialism. We discuss the misleading implications of certain “coexistence art” which locates interpersonal prejudice as the source of conflict while deliberately glossing over systemic inequality. As Leila puts it, while art can build bridges, a bridge built on uneven ground is just a dysfunctional seesaw.  We also talk about Martha Graham, cultural appropriation as a foundation of US modern dance, the Cold War-era…

We got to have Amina Shareef Ali back for another episode!  She was on the podcast all the way back in January 2021 (episode 147), and we now had a wonderful conversation about her upcoming album, In the Dark (Awake of Course), volume 2. In this episode, Amina describes the throughlines of the tracks, who was involved in the making of the album (shout out to Radical Folksonomy!), and the parts of her life this album draws from. The tracks explore themes of heartbreak and redemption, and living and loving boldly with integrity.  Cristy Road made the album cover, seen…

We were joined by the wonderful Bijhan Agha, a Persian-American author and creator living in Uruguay. Bijhan talked about her wonderful creation, Kobra Olympus.  Kobra is a trans, lesbian hijabi superhero with adventures that can be accessed and followed by you all if you get the comic when it comes out!  In this episode, Bijhan and Ellie dive in to some comic book history and discuss some of the nods to some older work by Kobra, as well as the many factors that make the Kobra comic so unique. We also talk about what led Bijhan and her partner to…

We start off this episode by asking an AI to write a script for our podcast and doing a reading (did the AI get it right?) Then we talk about our actual lives. We discuss the legal attacks on trans rights in several Southern US states, plus some random transphobes at Waffle House. We commiserate about the challenges and doubts we've been encountering surrounding our respective careers. We also talk about how (queer) bar culture and etiquette have shifted due to dating apps, Buc-ees, squirrels, and the new Zelda game.

( See a walkthrough of Noor’s exhibit here! Hayati – My Life/My Love ) Noor Aldayeh is a visual artist from Los Angeles, California. She is an Honors Film and Media student at Emory University minoring in Women's, Gender and Sexuality studies, and acts as a student photographer for the Office of Belonging Community and Justice at the university. Our conversation centered around Noor's thesis project ​​”Hayati (حياتي) – My Life / My Love,” an archive of queer, Middle Eastern and North African women and gender non-conforming-individuals across the US photographed alongside their personal safe spaces.  Noor discusses what drew…

Alma Doumani is the bassist for Slave to Sirens, an all-women thrash metal band from Lebanon that gained international attention through the documentary Sirens, which depicts the lives of the band members over three years. Outside of music, Alma is also a photographer and video producer.  In the episode, Alma talks us through her love for the complexity of metal music, how she got connected to the band, and how the documentary process started with a Facebook message from Rita Baghdadi. She also describes what it was like to have such pivotal moments in her and her bandmates' lives thoroughly…

Rayan Afif is a multi-media artist and theater maker of Egyptian and Lebanese descent making work that envisions queer SWANA futures. Rayan discussed some of their visual art which depicts dream physical spaces—including a mana'eesh cafe and queer SWANA drag race—and the importance of online community spaces when physical ones are not available. They also described their journey into playwriting and some of their theater projects, including a play exploring the effects of the Beirut explosion on two sisters, a historical fiction piece about a queer Egyptian in the 1950s (researched by interviewing their grandmother and great-grandmother), and an interactive…

In this episode, we caught up with Rana Fayez, an Arab, non-binary, arts producer, musician/sound artist, DJ, archivist, and founder of YallaPunk. Rana told us how they started YallaPunk in 2016 in response to political attacks on the SWANA community and how the organization has evolved since then, including the festivals, language practice groups, pandemic-era community kitchen, residencies, and pop-up events. They also talked about the mental health tolls of being in a quasi-community-organizer role, the unrealistic expectations placed on individuals with a moderately-sized public platform, and how they've learned to set boundaries around their time, energy, and social media…

Tarik Zahr is a Lebanese PhD candidate in New York City; his focus is the study of NASH and Atherosclerosis. We were excited to have this episode dedicated to science, to learn about some of the ways metabolic diseases can manifest, and to discuss how his research may be able to benefit individuals of Middle Eastern descent.  We also discussed queer Arab science, the importance of archiving, and the need for diverse representation within the medical research field. (Science!) Twitter: tarik_zahr

It's our 200th episode! Alia, Ellie, and Nadia celebrate with a deep and messy group chat. We recall the early days of the podcast and some tough lessons about trust learned along the way. Then we discuss the World Cup, the brief resurgence of pan-Arabism surrounding the Moroccan team, and what we think of discourse on migrant workers' rights, LGBTQ rights, and alcohol in Qatar. We talk about how frustrating our mental healthcare system can be when it comes to seeking non-emergency support, and what's missing from the “check on your friends” memos. We also vague-cast (the podcast equivalent of…

Sarah Bitar is an actor, writer, and teaching artist from Lebanon. Since graduating from the Stella Adler School of Acting, she has been living and creating in NYC. Sarah joined us to talk about her experiences in both the Lebanese and New York theater scenes, and the relative challenges of finding space, funding, community, and consistency in each.  Sarah mentions her recent/upcoming projects including: Stockade, a thriller film directed by Eric McGinty, in which Sarah plays a Lebanese painter in NYC–amidst her artist visa application process–who takes on a job delivering a mysterious parcel. Diss Oriental, a play co-written with…

Elias Jahshan is a Palestinian/Lebanese-Australian journalist, writer and editor. He most recently edited the anthology This Arab Is Queer, which features eighteen queer Arab writers (including a good handful of former podcast guests) sharing stories across a variety of locations, experiences, and aesthetic styles. Elias joined us to talk about growing up in Western Sydney, breaking into the journalism field in Australia and England, and the assumptions he encountered while writing for both Arab and LGBTQ centered publications. He also discussed the process of putting this memoir together, the particular care involved in editing personal work, the quandaries involved in…

This week we were joined by Iranian-Canadian lawyer, researcher, and writer Aytak Dibavar for an episode focused on the recent uprisings in Iran following Jina (Mahsa) Amini's murder by “morality” police. Aytak discussed aspects of the movement that have been neglected in mainstream media and discussion, including Jina's Kurdish identity, its working class roots, and the inclusion of queer voices. We also discuss the historical context of American intervention in Iran and previous protest movements, often absent from Western coverage. We discuss the hesitancy of international leftists in speaking out–whether due to oversimplified ideas of anti-interventionism or concerns of promoting…

On August 30, 2021, we published a magical bicoastal, virtually-recorded episode with Amir Aram Ronaldo.  We now have an in-person episode with them a little over a year later!  On October 30, 2022, we (Alia, Nadia, and Aram) set out on an adventure in NYC on a Halloween bookstore crawl.  Boba tea was had.  Pickles were purchased at a bookstore that has books and pickles.  Cats being walked in clear backpacks were discussed. We took a break, sat on a large rock in a park, and recorded this mini-episode!  Hear all about Avocado Toast’s, Bella Hadid’s, and Cher from Clueless’…

We've got a personal episode this week with Ellie, Alia, and Nadia!  A lot of the discussion focuses on one particularly eventful day for Alia and Nadia that included: Alia attending a protest in solidarity with Iranian women's rights, along with some friends from Iran, who discussed how optimism and political energy varies across micro-generations.  The puppet/public art project Walk With Amal, which was heartwarming, but also brought up complicated feelings about the need for art to create empathy towards refugees. The documentary Sirens about the Lebanese all women thrash metal band Slave to Sirens, which was both beautiful in…

Ahmed Sadkhan (The Healing Khan) is a queer activist and life coach specializing in inner alignment and inner child work.  He is Lebanese-Iraqi and grew up in Berlin; during this episode, Ahmed discusses the work he has done internally and externally to examine the pieces of himself and his identities that have yet to receive needed care.  Ahmed also talks about the work he has done with others to help them along their healing journeys, the ways he has contributed in the collective aim for queer liberation, and more. You can follow Ahmed on Instagram @TheHealingKhan, and check out his…

Barrak Alzaid is an award-winning writer of memoir, prose, poetry and art criticism, as well as an educator and organizer of artistic community spaces. His current projects include his memoir Fabulous, about queer coming of age in Kuwait, and a speculative fiction novel grappling with the racial, class, and environmental circumstances of near-future Kuwait City (based on his short story “The Runner”).  Barrak discusses how he aims to move away from the Eurocentric “single author” model of creating art, including the GCC artist collective, which creates group work around the aesthetics of their upbringings in the gulf, and holding physically-based…

Hamzeh Daoud is a trans femme Palestinian researcher, organizer, and tech person originally from Amman, and currently based in Texas. She's co-lead of the ongoing survey Presencing Ourselves: A Survey of LGBTQI+ Muslims in the U.S. (along with our recent guest Amara, and in partnership with Queer Crescent). **If this applies to you, you can take the survey here!!** This episode consists of complete emotional whiplash in which we alternate between serious conversations of queerphobia, family trauma, and settler colonialism, and utter ridiculousness.  Hamzeh discusses the importance of the survey from their perspective, both identifying and critiquing the ways that…

You might remember Amara Ahmed from one of our very first guest episodes–and we were delighted to have her back! Amara is a researcher and PhD candidate based in the CA Bay Area. A trans Muslim of Mexican and Pakistani background, she is involved in queer Muslim community organizing in the area including the organization Queer Crescent.  She joined us to talk about a research survey she's co-conducting in partnership with Queer Crescent: Presencing Ourselves: A Survey of LGBTQI+ Muslims in the U.S. **If this applies to you, you can take the survey here!!** We discuss the confidentiality and security…

Photo attribution: Trekky0623, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons Just the hosts this week here with an unedited personal catch-up episode (Do y'all like these? Let us know!)  Ellie talks about getting COVID (finally) and lots of things wrong with the world: from the overturning of Roe v. Wade to Mohammed Bin Salman's continued financial takeover of the video game industry (this leads to a conversation about which countries are the best at glossing over shit, and we wonder if we're all in a Dubai-based replica of our lives).  Nadia talks about their time in Turkey and Lebanon, and…

It was such a joy to have Saudi-American podcaster, theater maker, and just overall awesome individual, Sid, as our guest for this episode!  They had one of our co-hosts (Alia) on their podcast recently, so this was a really fun crossover.  Sid hosts The Wayward World Podcast, which you all should subscribe to.  On this episode, we discussed the creation of, and inspiration behind, Sid’s podcast, their experience growing up in Saudi Arabia and relocating back to the U.S., the journey we all have been on in connecting with other queer Arabs, and more.  Enjoy! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-wayward-world-podcast/id1519818615

Bashar Murad is a Palestinian singer, lyricist, director and composer based in Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem. Bashar uses pop music and art as a vehicle to challenge stereotypes, normativity and to highlight social issues facing young generations of urban Palestinians.  We were so excited to have Bashar on the pod to discuss his recent work, including his latest EP Maskhara, a remix EP (coming soon), and covering Nina Simone's I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free for the upcoming film A Gaza Weekend. Bashar explains the creation process for both his music and his visually striking music…

We were thrilled to have Alireza Shojaian back on the podcast after his last episode three years ago! Alireza is an artist from Iran, previously in Beirut, and currently based in Paris whose work pushes boundaries in representation of queer bodies and sexuality.  He discusses his veggie drawing series, made during a period of identity questioning, and the line between gay and trans identities in the Iranian framework. He also explains the instances of censorship he's still experienced presenting queer work in the US and France, due to Iranian authorities exerting “soft power” abroad and Western presenters neglecting to stand…

Layla EO is a Jordanian-American artist, self taught illustrator, and overall creative, raised in Texas, currently living in Chicago, offering a more vibrant take on the world.  Layla talks about using her bold color palette as an alternative to the infamous yellow filter usually used to portray our home countries in Hollywood. Many of her illustrations feature queer, SWANA, and other POC subjects, allowing a wide range of people to imagine themselves through a lens of joy and beauty. As Layla discusses her love for drag, we all recount our own dabblings as drag kings and queens. We also talk…

Amal Amer (they/them) is a transdisciplinary artist, writer, and facilitator of SWANA descent currently based in California. Through visual media, performance, and collective storytelling, they explore the tension between rootedness and movement in diaspora. Amer's work reinterprets symbols and stories from SWANA cosmologies, holding space for queer and trans folks to transform and heal. Weaving together magic, spirituality, desire, displacement, and state violence, their work colorfully trans*cends gender and media boundaries. Blessed with the gift of traveling between worlds, they move between organizing spaces, nightclubs, institutions, friends' couches, and star-storied spirit and plant realms. Their solo show, i love you…

Ahmad Ray is a queer activist and creator from Palestine, currently living in Canada and building a following on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Ranging from light to serious, their content focuses on glimpses of queer Arab life, Palestinian liberation, and social taboos within their communities. This episode focused on Ahmad's challenges since immigrating to Canada and their experience becoming an online creator. They explain how they've navigated hate from Zionists, heteronormative Palestinians, and privileged members of the Arab diaspora, as well as the suppression of pro-Palestinian content on social media platforms. However, they have also received an overwhelming amount of…

Eman Abdelhadi is a second generation Palestinian-Egyptian academic, activist, and artist based in Chicago, IL. She's also the subject of the upcoming documentary Coming Around, which follows her close and evolving relationship with her mother over the past six years, including Eman's decision to come out as queer. Eman discussed what it was like to have intimate moments of her life documented, the importance of representing both herself and her mother outside a binary lens of good and bad, and the subversion of the singular coming out story most prominent in Western media.  Eman also talked about coming into the…

Samer Ghrawi is a Palestinian/Syrian-American musical artist based in California. With musical influences including Gospel, Soul, RnB, Arab pop, and older Arab music, his work sheds light on emotional struggles that are often swept under the rug.   Samer tells us about growing up gay in a strict Christian environment and Arab in an overwhelmingly white school, falling in love with RnB music as a “guilty” pleasure, experiencing conversion therapy, and eventually repairing his relationship with his parents. He also discusses the unspoken prevalence of alcoholism and addiction in both Arab and queer cultures, his own to sobriety and recovery, and…

Tarek Mohamed (TT) is an Egyptian activist, scholar and writer currently pursuing a PhD in Anthropology at UC Irvine. We were thrilled to have Tarek back after his first episode in June 2020! Tarek discussed the time he spent in Egypt since our first conversation, and his concern over the shift in the political climate there. He noted a rise of military nationalism and American-style neocolonialism, and how pandemic conditions have helped fuel this trajectory. Tarek mentioned several projects coming up under his creative studio House of TT, including a graphic novel called “36 Love Letters to my Dead Abusive…

Caitlin Abadir-Mullally (kt) is a Coptic-American installation and social practice artist based in Philadelphia. She works to create communities for those who live between spaces. Her research dives into fear, hybridity, queerness, collective thinking, grief, and cultural loss. Caitlin Abadir-Mullally works in sculpture, performance, and relationship building. Caitlin Abadir-Mullally is pursuing a master's degree in library and information science with a focus in archival studies. She is passionate about documenting diasporic queer Southwest Asian and North Afrikan joy and complexity, and the agency of the living to decide how their narratives are preserved. We were so excited to have Caitlin…

We wrapped up 2021 with a wonderful conversation with Mikey Amman, fellow Capricorn, who is working in higher ed; we talked about the importance of filling the roles of educators with people who will advocate for, and relate to, the students they serve.  We discussed the challenges of navigating that system as a queer Arab; we also touched on finding the balance between honoring our queerness and staying in touch with our cultures in meaningful, fulfilling ways. Additionally, Mikey told us about the Britney fan group he started (the largest Facebook group for Britney fans!) and the community so many…

Rolla Selbak is a Palestinian-American filmmaker, writer, and director whose work has pushed boundaries of representation for Arab, Muslim, and queer characters. We were so excited to have her back to catch up since her first episode, right at the beginning of the pandemic. Rolla's recent projects include the short film “Finjan” (which you can watch online now) and “Ya Bint”, a dramedy TV series co-created with Dina Shihabi (currently in the works). Rolla discussed the new experience of writing for a producer's studio after working in the indie scene and adapting to expectations about what mainstream audiences might want…

Raed Rafei is a Lebanese filmmaker, researcher, and multimedia journalist, currently pursuing a PhD in film and digital media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. It was a joy to have Raed back on the podcast after meeting him at the exhibit Mark for Redaction 3(!) years ago! We discussed Raed's academic research on queer Lebanese filmmakers, focusing on perspectives that go beyond frameworks of identity politics and individual rights, and see queer communities at the forefront of broader political change.  We also talked about his first feature film “The Reconstitution of a Struggle” about the 1974 student occupation…

Mariam Bazeed is a nonbinary Egyptian immigrant, writer, editor, spoken word artist, performer, and cook living in Brooklyn. An alliteration-leaning writer of prose, poetry, plays, and personal essays, Mariam received their MFA in Fiction from Hunter College. Their work in all genres is in print and online, and their plays have been presented in festivals in the U.S. and abroad. Mariam joined us to talk about their start as an writer, their recent dive into poetry, reconnecting with family after extended separation, the joys and challenges of making personal work public, and writing bilingually for the first time.  Their new…

Pedro (project coordinator of The Love Tank's London-based Queer Migrant Men Project) and Ali (volunteer with the project) joined us for this week’s episode!  The QMM project was developed in response to the wide information gap in London among migrants, causing difficulty accessing sexual health services.  When migrants don't know the language, their rights, or about the free services available in the country, it becomes impossible for them to prevent and/or treat STIs and HIV. This is what inspired the decision to form the QMM project.  The project received funding by London Community Response this year, and now a small…

We've got a catchup episode with Ellie, Alia, and Nadia this week! We talk a little bit about our local disasters this week (Hurricane Ida and the new abortion laws in Texas). Then we need a mental break, so we play some hypothetical games (borrowed from the Just Between Us Podcast): “Would you stay with that cheater?” and “Are you a terrible parent?” Listen to find out how we would react to secret arranged marriages and whether we would tell our hypothetical kids that vegetables grow from jellybean seeds.

This week, Alia, Nadia, and Ellie joined to catch up with Armenian-Palestinian-American Artivist Aram Ronaldo, who you might remember from the “Land Back episode.” This time, we focused on Aram's work in theater, from the MENA-focused Golden Thread Productions in the Bay Area, to the wonderfully queer “Camp Morning Wood: A Very Naked Musical” in New York. We discussed the logistics of theater reopening (naked or not), how alternative companies may be more adaptable to safe practices, and what aspects of virtual/hybrid performance are here to stay. Aram also talked about the challenges of shifting deep-seated beliefs from anti-vaxing to…

Fadl Fakhouri is a Palestinian-American visual and multidisciplinary artist, currently based in NYC and pursuing an MFA at Columbia University. Their work considers borders of the state, identity, and interpersonal relationships in an effort to undo their oppressive nature, and sometimes includes film, installation, performance, and rocks.  Fadl joined us (in person!) to talk about pursuing art “seriously” after working in the medical field, their recent trip to Palestine, and their in-progress work “What the Fuck is Tel Aviv?” We also talked about contending with privilege and trauma in artmaking  and embracing problematic moments as part of the way to…

Fatima Elie, who goes by @fatimaelie is a Toronto based, Lebanese queer artist and film photographer. Her work, often documentary in style, showcases her love for her heritage and the world around her often seeing things others overlook. She is also a multidisciplinary artist who enjoys experimenting  with the art of Arabic calligraphy along with mixed media. The goal of her project in October is to highlight the beautiful stories of the people living in Lebanon, she wants to capture stories, share them with the world, and give back to the community and those that have participated in the project. On this episode,…

Alia and Nebal (thank you Nebal for guest co-hosting!) got to talk to author Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi about her newly released novel Savage Tongues!  The novel examines gender constructs in Islam and the West, and the intersections of sexual desire and violence amidst the ongoing subjugation of the Middle East to imperialism. In the book, she argues for queer intellectual exchange and female friendship as alternative structures to oppose patriarchy, heteronormativity, and the imposed religious, racial, and ethnic homogeneity of nationalism. In addition to talking about the novel itself, we discussed shared experiences navigating coming from a mixed…

This week we have an unfiltered, unedited personal episode with Nadia, Alia, and Ellie in the spirit of last year's InsecuriTEA series. We discuss our thoughts on the label “activist,” the need for psychological realism in leftist organizing, and our feelings of political, personal, professional, and podcast burnout. We also discuss our respective job instabilities and new directions (Alia's starting a coding bootcamp!), Nadia's recent trip to Lebanon, post(?)-pandemic dating struggles, and finding the balance between spending time with aging family members and living our messiest lives.

This week Ellie, Alia, and Nadia discuss some of the lesser-known dealings of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, such as his massive investment in the video game company SNK. Why does this matter? These “soft-power” moves ensure that international corporations will pressure their governments not to sanction Saudi Arabia – despite the state's human rights violations and destruction in Yemen. We also discuss MBS's serpentine rise to power and his history of associations with American celebrities. Listen for the political analysis – stay for some sleep-deprived tangents. Photo from The Verge, edited by Nadia