Arab Is Me Podcast | Episode 1 | Said Durrah | Why I Started This

Welcome to Episode 1 of the Arab Is Me Podcast.

In this episode, I share the story behind why I created Arab Is Me and the mission behind the podcast.

For too long, other people have tried to define what it means to be Arab. Arab Is Me is a space for Arabs to tell their own stories, share their experiences, and define themselves on their own terms.

Subscribe for future conversations with artists, comedians, entrepreneurs, activists, community leaders, and everyday people from across the Arab world and diaspora.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You are now listening to the Arab Is Me podcast. My name is Saidura. You are in the Arab Is Me podcast. You are either listening or you are watching. I want to welcome all of you to episode one. I thought of having other guests on episode one, uh, but I didn't want to put pressure on any of the guests to be the first guests. So it's just going to be me today. It's not going to be a long episode. I just want to tell you a little bit about myself and what Arab is me uh is all about. So again, my name is Said Dura. Um for those who who want to know, uh, my mother is from a place called Ghazza Falustin. Uh my dad, although born in Aman Jordan, his family is from Damascus, Syria. I was born just outside of Detroit. Uh I have been performing, uh, community organizing, doing a lot of things um, you know, as a as an Arab American. And so I created Arab is me, not necessarily originally as a podcast. It actually started more so as a comedy show and a comedy tour. And Arab Was Me was created because when I originally was growing up, I didn't actually grow up in Detroit. I was born in Detroit, but I grew up outside of Detroit. Uh I grew up in uh in Maryland. And where I grew up in Maryland, there wasn't really a lot of Arabs. There was no Muslims, you know, there was there was nobody really around in the area that I grew up. And so people would always come and ask me. They would say, you know, uh, hey, said, and I would never let, first of all, I don't let them pronounce my name incorrectly. So I would always correct them and say, it's Said, Said. Um, and so they would say, okay, Said, you know, they still couldn't get it, but I I'd give them the benefit of the doubt. And so they would say, you know, what's an Arab? What's an air, what's an Arab? And you they probably said something worse, and you know, I had to correct them. Uh, but they would ask me what that is, and I would always say, Listen, I don't know. And I'm like this little kid, you know, at like elementary school trying to explain. I'm like, I'm like, look, I'm I'm Said, I'm not like Edward Said, mashallah, I'm not like very articulate uh at age seven. Uh so what I would do is I would always tell them, Listen, uh being an Arab, uh, it's me. Like, so whatever you see me do, um, which is putting a lot of pressure. I hope the whole Arab world knows that I was that ambassador that young, uh, telling them that Arab is me. Arab is me. Um, and as I started to grow up, I realized I actually, believe it or not, didn't represent all the Arabs in the world. Um, and I started to learn myself, I started to meet more people, I started to realize that, you know, you know, some people just raked leaves in the fall. They didn't always eat leaves uh with ruz and lahmah and things like that uh rolled in it. Uh, it was possible uh that uh you know they didn't know what Mensef was. Um, you know, it was possible that they had never heard Abdul Halim, uh, or it was also possible that they're from a part of the Arab world I never experienced. So that's really what Arab is me was all about. And so I created this podcast with the intention that I was tired of people telling our story for us. Um, and also, and this is the the key here, I also felt that Arabs themselves were not telling their own stories to each other. We were not learning from from other people. You know, there's still those people who would who would show up and just look at a plate of kushri and say, This is mac and cheese, and then you'd have all the Egyptians, they're like, eh, eh, you know, and they would go nuts. Like, how do you not know what kushri is? And it goes beyond food. Although, like, food is one of uh top three favorite subjects, uh, you know, it goes beyond food. It goes about, you know, our our music, and it it's it's all about, you know, just our culture as a whole, how we speak, our language, you know, who we are, how we represent that particular culture. Uh, you know, you can walk down any street uh in the Arab world and you'll have a similar vibe, but you'll also have things that are very different. Um, and so that's the feeling that I wanted to bring into Arab is me. I wanted to bring people maybe you've heard of, maybe you haven't heard of, and I want to bring them onto this podcast to have very candid conversations. Now, I will tell you, anybody who's had conversations with me before, um, you know, I keep it uh may have been me, yeah. I keep it 100. Uh, and so a lot of the conversations that I've had with a lot of people I've met along the way, with kind of being in the entertainment industry or or or you know, performing or or uh community organizing, I've met a lot of amazing people. And people always used to tell me, Sky, the way that you talk with so-and-so and the way you all have conversations is very different. Everybody, you know, they kind of get themselves with the perfect posture and they get on stage and they make these speeches. But when I see you all speak on the sidelines, it's a different conversation, it's a little bit more raw, and they almost want to listen in a little bit more. So that's what Arab is Me podcast is really meant to bring you. I honestly don't want to get too deep into asking people questions about like, just tell me about your life, uh, and and just let them give me that information and ask them very kind of generic questions. I mean, there's so many different places that they can go to to share that kind of information. Um, but for me, I really want to make it as as raw as we can uh and have a little fun. So I gave it a little bit of structure, right? So I didn't want it just to be a podcast where you come on there. I hope I try to get three or four questions. Because by the way, an Arab podcast is hard enough because as Arab, like we like to talk. And so I can imagine two questions being asked in an hour. Um, and uh, and that's it, because we just like to go on and on and on and on. And I'm one of them, right? So, how am how am I, of all people, gonna try to corral all this information in, right? So um I've decided to give it a little bit of structure, and I'm structuring it around the modern day or or maybe even the old school azayim, right? The gathering. Um, yeah, I want to be able to learn and I want to be able to hear what what everybody has to say, but I want to give it a structure that's very similar to inviting somebody into my home, right? So there's several parts of this podcast that I hope you are going to enjoy. The first part of the Azuma, as you all know, as Arab, any Arab that do like an hour and a half, you know, somebody shows up and you wait an hour and a half to eat, something's wrong with you. I'm just letting you know right now. That's not the norm. The norm is we go right to the food. We even call you and say, hey, where are you? Because the food's coming out. We gotta go. We we need to eat, right? So that's how the podcast is gonna start. It's gonna start with that initial meal. Now, if you can imagine yourself at an Azuma, right? At this, at this gathering, or you're having some people over. The first for first few, I would say, I don't know, five, ten minutes, twenty minutes while you all are eating, it's very, very generic conversation. Ah, you know, it's that part where you ask about every member of their family um individually after you asked, how is the family collectively? Uh, it probably sounds like uh, how's your family? Wow, wow, that's great. How's your family? Good, good, good, alhamdulillah, and how's it baba? Great, and how's it, mama? Great, and how's your sister? Great, and how's your cousin? Great, and all they're hearing, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, right? We're getting through all of that. So the beginning, I'm really just getting through the formalities, asking them a little bit about themselves, how you know what they've been up to, kind of getting through some of those things, right? At this point, if you can imagine, I'm still passing the grape leaves, I'm passing the, oh yeah, well, oh, you guys, oh, I didn't know you put pomegranate sauce on. Yeah, yeah, we do, mashallah. Oh, I didn't know. Okay, we're getting through that, right? Once we get through that part of the podcast with that guest, we start to move to something that's a little bit different, right? We move into now. We're starting to get into uh more so the the the tea phase, right? Halas, we've we've eaten, we're we have our hands on our bellies, we're we're enjoying ourselves, we sit down, we're sitting, probably in some place called the salon, which is an off-limits area uh for most Arab families. Um, but hopefully through this podcast, I'll learn the all the different versions of the salon because I'm very interested if that uh you know how how that was installed in the brain of most Arabs, but I love it. So the salon, we sit down now, we're having the tea. Now, if you can imagine again, you're having the tea, you're sitting down, you're enjoying yourself, masha. Now you start asking the real questions. So uh I heard you're getting married, you know. Tell me about her, right? You would never do that within two minutes of eating, it's not appropriate. Hey, hey, right? So you start getting into more of that deeper conversation, and that's the second portion uh of the podcast. I'm gonna get a little bit deeper. I'm gonna start asking a few extra questions, right? The things that kind of go a little bit more uh deeper under the surface to learn a little bit more about them and what's going on. And again, I'm not gonna hold back. Uh, I'm not planning to send any questions to any of these guests so they can find out every single thing and prepare a long answer. I want the raw answers, right? All right. So once we move beyond that, we get to the part uh where sometimes you have that that extra little bit of of shag or coffee. You have it with some desserts, some Heliat, some fruits, whatever it may be. That's typically the part of an Arab gathering where like you've now kind of started to get towards the end of your welcome. Sure, we'll always say things like bedri, badri. It's not. They're they're trying to get you out, right? It's the end of the night. So, with that being said, that's when you know, after that, the sweet comes out. That's where we're really gonna be getting into um maybe some of the questions that I probably was originally afraid to ask when I was thinking about what questions I may ask, right? Some of the conversation where we're really talking about aspirations. We're talking about, you know, what are those things like you wish you had done differently? You know, what are those things that kind of held you back? Like things that I really want to be able to kind of end the gathering with, like thinking about and talking about, and and things that kind of give me a little bit more hope for what's coming around the corner, you know, talk about those things that that are more of like the exhale, just a sh, you know, um, because that's typically what you have to do after you've had all the food and you've had the tea and you've had the coffee and you have the alwayat, you're starting to have exhale. People are checking their belts, they're they're just wanting to kind of get home, so you know, because they've had enough. So before you go, though, before the podcast is over, we have a section which I'm tentatively calling it right now kind of the al-Bab section. Why do I call it the Al-Bab section? Because it's not a goodbye. Anybody who has ever had Arabs over to your house, especially if you are an Arab, you know that when it gets lalba, that's not a goodbye. There's still sometimes 20 or 30 minutes left in your gather, right? And what I'm gonna be doing in the Al-Bab portion before they go, of course, I want to find out how you all can connect with them and and how you can follow the work that they may be doing. But we are going to be having a very special part, uh, which is almost like a rapid fire, where I'm gonna be asking some questions, right? Gonna be asking some questions um that uh that might be a little bit uncomfortable for for those folks to answer. Now, what kind of questions would be in a rapid fire? They're not gonna be long-winded like opinions uh about you know their their life anymore. We've gotten past that. We had the coffee, we had the tea, we had the food. They're gonna be questions that are gonna put them on the spot. For example, if you had to take one, who is it gonna be? Umkaltum or Fayrus? You have to eliminate one. Who's the best? Tell me right now, you know, questions that not necessarily are gonna put them in their place where they're gonna be afraid, but they're gonna be like, oh man, why do you have to put me in that situation? Right? You know, um, so we're gonna go through a rapid fire questions, 10 to 20 questions. Uh, I plan on making the rapid fire very tough, very, very controversial uh questions uh for for the guests, and I really hope it's gonna be um a great experience for them. And I do expect them to have some questions that they don't want to answer, at which time I'm gonna be offering them the ability to make a donation. So they will have an ability to say, I don't want to answer that question. I don't want to say it. Like, what if I were to say, like, you know, who's better at cooking, Lebanon or Palestine? Right now, every other Arab country is going, what about us? It's not a real question, so calm down, right? But let's say it was, and let's say they were they were Syrian and Palestinian or Lebanese and Palestinian, whatever it may be. And I had to say, you know, who's the better cook in the family? I'll be honest with you, some people don't want to answer that question. Um, and if they don't, they can make a donation to a particular cause uh that that we have worked out with them. Um, it may be a cause of the episode, it may be a cause of the month, whatever it is. So they'll have that ability to to kind of back off, um, or get me to back off, I should say. Um so by the time the podcast is over, I'm really hoping that you all maybe this is a person uh that you thought you knew about that now you look at in a complete different light. You got to hear them have a conversation that maybe you know people um didn't want to ask before, you know. Uh, and I plan on also being that person that you know invites people to come on the podcast. If there is some craziness going out there in the community about them, come on, let's talk about it. Uh, I'm I'm ready. Um, so I'm really looking forward um, you know, to this podcast, and I'm hoping it's gonna be a great experience. Again, the podcast will probably be about an hour or so. Um, I say or so because sometimes we can go over. Um, but uh I'm hoping that it's gonna be about an hour. Um, so I really think that at the end of the day, um I want to utilize the network that that I've gained over the years, and I want to have conversations so that um I learn myself that it's a journey for me, that even though I thought Arab is me, what's Arab and you? What's what's Arab and and and others? What does that mean? Um and so what I would say is I want to try to have as much representative representation as I can. So if you all are thinking of a particular country that needs representation, or you're thinking of a person that you feel like um, you know, could be a perfect guest, um, please tag them in the comments, have them hit me up. I definitely would love to add them um and and try to put these podcasts out there uh so that everybody can kind of enjoy and learn. And you already know, and um I didn't perform on uh so many different stages as a comedian uh because you know I just want to stick to the script and want to not have fun. We're gonna have some fun too. And I think it's gonna be uh really great experience. So if that person out there you think would be great, tag them. Let's let's light it up, um uh and and try to get as many people as we can. Um, it doesn't matter whether the perception of them is a big name or small name, whatever it may be. Um, you know, I just want to make sure that we're we're having a good time while we're doing it. Um, and so um I know that we sometimes follow people on social media, um, but we don't really necessarily know them that well. I know we argue with people, I know we sit and eat with people, we chat with people, but inshallah, inshallah, inshallah, I'm hoping that this Arab is me podcast becomes a platform so that um we can start telling this story uh but in a very unique way. That's gonna put some pressure on me, right? Because I'm gonna be the host, I'm gonna be the one that's taking you all for this ride. Um, but I'm hoping it's it's it's gonna be a great experience. So um you have all the socials that you'll see um if you're watching this right now or listening to this right now. Um all our handle is the same no matter where you go. It's Arab is me podcasts. So uh you can probably see it at the bottom of the screen if you're if you're watching this right now. But just remember, Arab is me podcast. Um, that's on all socials. Uh, we're gonna be placing this on YouTube as well. Um, and uh we may even do some live uh Arab is me podcasts from different locations around the country. Uh, but for now, this is this is what we got. Uh and I I I know I probably place somewhere in the captions, I probably am mentioning um, you know, to uh to to all of you uh that um that I promise to mention who some of the big heavy hitters are that we're gonna be having on this podcast. And uh and I almost feel obligated to tell you who some of these people are um because I really want you kind of watching um and enjoying uh this podcast. So I think this is a good opportunity for me to stop all this blabbing and tell you the most amazing lineup of guests that you all have seen, heard from. Uh, you know, these people have been on on TV, movies, um everywhere, have been, you know, uh, you know, uh maybe uh famous, well-known professors, um, a lot of things. So I'm really excited to kind of um share that list with you. So um, yeah, without further ado, our lineup for these upcoming first ten to twelve podcasts. If you're ready. Are you ready for this? Are you ready for this? All right, well then stay ready.