Our Podcast Recommendations:

I’m Not Racist But... by Donia Ismaïl. Journalist and founder of the Arabengers project, Donia launches a podcast in French on Slate, analyzing everyday racism. Listeners can attend live recordings, where various cultural personalities engage in discussions about the normalization of racism (with guests like Nadège Beausson-Diagne, Anas Daif, etc.). The podcast is available on all platforms and can be found here. Il est possible d’assister aux enregistrements qui invite différentes personnalités culturelles à dialoguer autour de la banalisation de ce fait sociétal (Nadège Beausson-Diagne, Anas Daif, …); The podcast is available on all platforms and can be found here.

I Speak to You from Beirut by L’Orient-Le Jour. Broadcasting live from the ongoing Israeli attacks on Lebanon, this podcast gives a voice to the victims of the new massacre unfolding before the world’s eyes. In a bid to humanize the victims, the podcast challenges the Western narrative of “war” causing “collateral damage” in Lebanon by giving the Lebanese a voice, presence, and humanity. Each three-minute episode, available on YouTube or all platforms, recounts the daily lives of Beirutis under bombardment. The first episode can be found here, titled “Nasrallah and Skateboarding,”

Blank Maps, produced by Sowt. This podcast explores identity issues in the Arab world and presents itself with a simple tagline that we will keep in English: “On home and belonging, and everything in between.” Each episode in the four-season series lasts about fifteen minutes, focusing on a specific story. Our favorite episode features Mustafa, a Palestinian Druze, born with Israeli citizenship. When he faces mandatory military service in the Israeli army, he finds himself at the crossroads of his different identities, affiliations, and beliefs. Available only in Arabic, here.