Congratulations. You Have Reached the End.

So. That’s our show. All of it. We made it to the finish line. After five years, the podcast has come to an end.

We are so proud of the work we’ve been able to accomplish over the past five years of doing this show. We have been able to contribute and shape the conversation of what it means to be Muslim in America, especially as two very different woman, and we challenged the way society tried to box us in the whole time. We complicated the narrative and re-centered our experiences. We practiced shine theory and incorporated our theory of social change. We’ve gotten national awards, been let into space that we previously thought wasn’t meant for us, cried with our listeners, and got to practice radical play that spread joy. What a wild ride it has truly been.

Of course, we have our own favorite highlights to the podcast, which we’ve included below.

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Zahra’s #GoodMuslimBadMuslim Top Highlights

• Debriefing the 2016 Elections on the show was so helpful to make it feel like we were less alone.

• After the Pulse Shooting, Zahra comes out.

• Going to the Agha Khan Museum in Toronto to record both an episode of the show and a live recording of On Behalf of All Muslims was truly a gift.

• A classic episode has to be the one where Zahra tells the story of how her mother removed her partner’s body hair.

• We recorded live from inside the White House - the Obama White House specifically - which seems like a dream with Trump now in office.

Taz’s #GoodMuslimBadMuslim Top Highlights

• Going on the Manzanar Pilgrimage with Vigilant Love and accidentally recording a most amazing episode, my favorite.

• We had the most moving moments while in a week long artist residency at Shangri-La Museum of Arts, Culture and Design in Honolulu.

• After the 2016 elections, all of a sudden, people were donning safety pins to show solidarity with Muslims. So, we sold our own for $2,020.

• Taz loved going on a tour of Little Bangladesh in a produced narrative podcast - and got to share the foods of her peeps.

• We worked with the good folks at Fusion Comedy to make The Muslim Guide to Voting - and it was truly an electoral organizer’s dream come true.

Though we are ending this show - we are both in love with the art form of podcast and are in it for the long haul - you will def be hearing us in the world of audio in future projects. We are not leaving! And we are both still making content - essays, poetry, mixtapes, videos - as well as available for speaking engagements and workshops. We will continue to speak up and out as Muslimahs in America, whether you like it or not. To follow what next, follow Taz Ahmed at @tazzystar and at www.tazzystar.me & follow Zahra Noorbakhsh at @zahracomedy and at www.zahracomedian.com.

A big huge thank you also to our sound engineer Quincy Surasmith, who was the engine behind our show. It was a conversation in a cubicle with Taz & Quincy that really turned an idea into a product - thank you for taking a chance on us. Listen to his podcast Asian Americana now.

The good thing about leaving now is knowing there are plenty of other Muslim/Brown American podcasts to pass the baton on to. Listen to our friends - See Something, Say Something podcast, Identity Politics podcast, Ethnically Ambiguous podcast, Bad Brown Aunties podcast, American Submitter podcast, Tell Them I Am podcast, Bollywood Boys podcast, Solidarity Is podcast, Queering Desi podcast, and The BIG We podcast.

Finally, we are so grateful to our community of fellow Asian American podcasters in the Potluck Podcast Collective. We recorded many of our shows out of the Potluck Podcast studio located in the office of Visual Communication in Little Tokyo, and we couldn’t have done it without this crew. Listen to all the shows in the network!

Till next time, inshallah.

Homework Links for Episode #61

For our last episode (at least last for now) we had a HUGE house party where we recorded a live show! It was a wonderful way to celebrate the end of our five year long project.

• Valentine’s Day is even more special with one of Taz’s #MuslimVDay cards.

• To keep up to date with the elections, we have been listening to The Daily podcast.

• Here’s more on the islamophobic nature of the 2020 Presidential candidates, particularly Tulsi Gabbard.

• Jump into helping to Get Out the Muslim Vote by joining the Mpower Change campaign.

• One of Zahra’s highlight was to go on United Shades of America with Kamau Bell and interview an Iranian hostage survivor.

• President Trump has appropriated the hijabi tan line.

• Thyroid extract is taken from a pig, so does that make it haram?

• Let us not forget The Bacon Lobby and how it is forcing bacon on people worldwide.

• The 2020 Census is making it really hard for Asian Americans to actually fill out their Asian American type - follow the Count Us In Campaign and be sure to fill in your ethnicity accordingly!

• Thank you to all the organizers behind the #NoMuslimBanEver campaign - thank you for fighting the good fight.

• Special thanks to Shahjehan Khan from The Kominas for the amazing music you hear on the show, including the going to away song at the end of the show!

Thank you all for listening to all of our episodes over the past 5 years! We are grateful to each and every one of you. Drop us a line if you have a favorite #GoodMuslimBadMuslim story - we’d love to hear what this show has meant to you over all these years.

Homework Links for Episode #24

As we close out our second year of the podcast, we have a lot to reflect on. Most importantly, a Merry Muslim Christmas to All and a Happy New Year!

• First off, Taz had an amazing reading of Good Girls Marry Doctors in LA! If you still haven't gotten your copy yet, not to worry: Aunt Lute has it at a huge discount.
• We truly feel for Yasmin Seweid, the Muslim girl who falsified a police report, and hope that our communities can do better about making brown girls feel safe.
• There's a petition to out Mike Adams from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, just like he outed one of the queer Muslim students.
• Meanwhile, the agony in Aleppo continues. Daughters and wives have been asking their male relatives to kill them to avoid rape and torture from Assad's army.
• If you haven't heard already, Dylann Roof was found guilty.
• A Christmas gift from us: a syllabus on how white people can educate themselves. Please also join SURJ.
• Also, we are not your helpers. To put it in this article's words, "I am not your racial confessor."
• Here's the video for "Dear Child" that Taz co-produced, in case you felt like crying.
• Zahra appeared on BuzzFeed's "See Something, Say Something" podcast, in addition to CIIS' podcast.
• Taz also appeared on See Something, Say Something's podcast to talk about being Muslim and celebrating Christmas. 
• Taz wrote an amazing piece about the Muslim registry, and you can read it right here.

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Christmas Mubarak!

Homework Links for Episode #23

So the Elections are done, you are in one of the five stages of grief, and you want to help! Here's a links to all the things we talked about in our "Pins and Polls" podcast, and be sure to join the conversation through our hashtag! And if you are so moved, we like our Christmas gift in the form of a donation. 

• If you are the victim of a hate crime, please use this #ReportHate link at the Southern Poverty Law Center to report it. 
• How do you even begin to protect yourself before Jan 20th? Here's a great How To list to get you started. 
• Looking for your weekly list of activist things to do? Join Wall-Of-Us to get your updates! 
• Join the Movement to Oppose Trump to join movement emails by Michael Skolnik. 
• Not sure how to make calls or where to sign petitions? Use the 18MillionRising action tool right here - it's easy and  the call tool will call your phone directly and link you up.
• Looking to make lots of calls? Use this "We're His Problem Now" calling tool right here. 
• Money talks - and use #GrabYourWallet resource to know which business to boycott now. 
• Trump Administration wants to reinstate NSEERS. 
• The internment of the Japanese-Americans set a precedent for what might happen to Muslims. 
• There have been 867 hate incidences in the ten days after Election Day, reports the Southern Poverty Law Center. 
• To track the anti-Muslim hate crimes, you can visit Islamophobia.org
• Trump supporters threw fire into a car where the Muslim driver was burned. 
• Why you shouldn't use the term "Alt-Right" and if you do, this is how the AP says to use it. 
• Muslims are in solidarity with #NoDAPL. Just watch. 
• If you want to support #NoDAPL, buy and send supplies here. 
• Is Glenn Beck woke now? Read this article that implies he is - and then watch his interview with Anderson Cooper. 
• Heera Hashmi and her amazing spreadsheet of Muslims condemning things gets a Good Muslim Award. 
• SAALT cuts their ties with Southwest Airlines. 
• Get your copy of Cashmere by the Swet Shop Boys. 
• Follow the wise words and music of the awesome Humble the Poet. 

Homework Links for Episode #17

Recording from inside the White House - photo by Les Talusan

HOLY MOLY, they let us in to record from INSIDE the White House! Here are the links so you can follow along:

Taz & Zahra at the White House. Photo by Les Talusan.

• Taz got an award from the White House! She was one of ten Asian American and Pacific Islanders who received the Champion of Change in Art and Storytelling award last month. Check out the blog Taz wrote for the White House about the award, the Crafting with Mom and Collecting Legacies #MyAAPIStory she recorded for StoryCorps, and this interview she gave to Dexter Thomas with the LA Times with fellow awardees Jenny Yang and Jason Fong!
• Taz recorded a reflection of her White House visit over at her epistolry project Bholo::Speak
• This student said "Inshallah" on a Southwest flight, and then got kicked off. It's fact.
• Students at San Diego State University protested the university's president by praying in front of his car. 
• A Muslim woman files a lawsuit against Long Beach Police Dept for having her remove her hijab. You know, because that's illegal. 
• POTUS went to a Baltimore Mosque, the first visit by the administration to a mosque. Here's what he said. 
• Toddlers are involved with more shootings than Muslims. Well that should have been obvi. 
• Chobani workers gain ownership of the business, thanks to the generous Muslim company owner.
• Did you miss it? Taz and Zahra were in Cosmopolitan - where they called us twenty-somethings. Which is the total truth. 
• We had an awesome conversation with fellow #WHChamps Fawzia Mirza and Kayhan Irani. 

BONUS: Check out this White House AAPI Heritage Month Playlist! Mishthi Music (Taz's music site) helped curate this list! 

Homework Links for Episode #16

We get real intimate in this podcast about washing and body hair. Here are some links to what we talked about: 

Zayn Malik's Album Cover

• Brussels Attack article talking about how Muslim attacker was "dangerously normal". 
• Man asked to spell his "foreign" name at the polls. 
• Muslim immigrants were deported this past month.
• Sesame Street introduces a hijabi puppet named Zari.
• School may expel Muslim youth for getting bullied. 
• Mpower and all of their petitions. 
• Bangladeshi bloggers getting murdered for secular ideas. 
• I Call My Brothers the play. 
• Zahra was guest on the Interfaith Voices podcast.
• AF3IRM Earrings of Shadow and Light Art Show (coming to NYC very soon!)

Zahra Gets Heaven Points on Snap Judgement

On this week's Snap Judgement, you can hear our very own Zahra talking about heaven points, eating pork, wearing hijab and religious farts! She took the stage at the Snap Judgement LIVE Oakland show earlier this year. Take a listen! And for those of you coming to our website for through listening to Snap Judgement - thanks for stopping by! And be sure to subscribe to the #GoodMuslimBadMuslim Podcast! 

Homework Links for Episode #15

Zahra and I had a BLAST at South by Southwest - thanks to Dropbox for flying us out and making this experience happen! See, look at how happy we are in this cute video of all the Podcast Studio participants! You want those links to what we said? Check out what we talked about below: 

• Taz's chapbook is available now - Emdash & Ellipses.
• Mishthi Music - Taz's South Asian diaspora music blog.
• Taz was honored in NBC's 31 Days of Feminism for the month of women! 
• Fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad was asked to take her hijab off at #SXSW. But just look at how cool she looks on the Ellen Show. How could you? 
• Three boys were stabbed in Huntington Beach for speaking in Arabic. 
• Three people were shot in Milwaukee for speaking another language and being Brown. 
• And another three black men were shot & #OurThreeBrothers campaign started.
• Surashbhai Patel GHangout with 18MillionRising, check out the video #Justice4MrPatel.
• Protest of Trump in Chicago was led by Latino and Muslim students.
• Sanders took the Muslim vote in Michigan. 
• Feminist critique of Clinton.
• Muslim themed children's books.  
• Curious George celebrates Ramadan.
• Saqib Javed and his epic hair flip felt around the world. 
• 7% of Muslims are voting for Trump. 
• Trump's Muslim daughter - Ayesha Ali Trump. 
• Muslim women removed from plane for staring. But like, aunties stare. So get over it. 
• Taz's latest project w/ Rohin Guha, Bholo::Speak
• Zahra's YouTube Channel where you can watch her one-minute stories. 
• The Coiled Serpent from Tia Chucha Press - the Los Angeles poetry anthology Taz is in. 
• Thank you to Amanda Quraishi for moderating the Auntie Staredown!

While there, Taz was also able to check out South Asian musicians for her South Asian Diaspora site Mishthi Music. Check out the posts she wrote on the musicians here: 

• Saturday Night Killing Machine
• Kiran Gandhi
• Prateek Kuhad
• Ayes Cold
• World Hood
• Iyer
• Movin' Cool
• Horsepowar

On the mic.

Zahra & Taz at #SXSW

The Podcast Crew.

Homework: Links for Episode #13

Thank you so much to University of Michigan's South Asian Awareness Network for hosting us for this episode of #GoodMuslimBadMuslim! Check out the following links to follow along to Episode #13 - Live From University of Michigan:

• Zahra and Taz were in Oprah Magazine as a Must Listen Podcast!
• Hamptramack, Michigan has a Muslim majority City Council. They even refer to themselves as BanglaTown! 
• Governor Snyder rejected refugees from coming to Michigan. 
• Flint, Michigan crisis and what the emails have shown us. 
• Sterling Heights in Michigan rejected having a mosque getting built for fear of ISIS. 
• Dolce & Gabbana release fancy shmancy high end hijabs. 
• Zahra & Taz were guests on the Denzel Washington is the Greatest Actor of All Time Podcast talking about the movie The Siege. And then they invented a drinking game.
• Favianna Rodriguez is an amazing radical brown artist. 
• Republicans want to bomb Agrabah, the fictional city from the Disney movie Aladdin. 
• Not Without My Daughter was a big deal movie to Iranians. 
• Sarah Palin endorses Trump. 
• A hijabi woman showed up to a Trump rally and people got mad. 
• The 2011 Hijabi Flashmob Taz and crew did at the RightOnline conference. 
• The movie The Muslims Are Coming is very different now. 
• Why Precisely is Bernie Sanders Against Reparations? by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic.
• Nikki Haley was under bright lights at State of the Union Address. 
• We the BEST because DJ Khaled is on Snapchat and said so. Here's an Old People's Guide to DJ Khaled. 
• Dalia Mogahed on The Daily Show talking about the hijab gets our Good Muslim Award for this month. 
• Taz's #MuslimVDay Cards were on Buzzfeed! 
•  

Awesome crowd at SAAN!

Magic Lamp from Dearborn, MI

The Seige.

Homework: Links for Episode #12

Can you believe it has been a year of #GoodMuslimBadMuslim-ing? Thanks to the SF Grotto for hosting us for this recording! Check out the following links to follow along to Episode #12: Muslim Christmas:

• We got Wired! Check us out in "5 Women Quashing Preconceptions About Islam on Social Media" in the December 2015 issue. 
• Totally fangirled when Glenn Greenwald tweeted about us.
• Zahra writes a piece over at Bitch Magazine called, "A Self-Care Guide To Counter Trump Fatigue."
• Taz writes about what it is like growing up in San Bernardino in aftermath of San Bernardino shootings for Truthout: Islamophobia After San Bernardino. 
• There have been lots and lots of hate crimes against people perceived as Muslim since the San Bernardino shootings. Here's a list. 
• Somali American child falls to death - hate crime or not is still being debated. 
• President Obama addresses the San Bernardino shooting.
• Zahra talks to Neda Ulaby at NPR about What American Muslims Do On Christmas. 
• Donald Trump leading in the polls, but Taz isn't sure how. 
• Republican party wants to kick Trump out of their party. 
• Hasan Minhaj refers to Trump as WISIS - in other words, WHITE ISIS. Which totally makes sense. 
• Heaven Points as defined by Zahra in her column The Infidel Husband. 
• Princess Leia Hijabi Tutorial
• We Are Better Than This Campaign ad in The New York Times - be sure to sign and show your support! 
• Bollywood actor Aamir Khan talks about how the Modi government has created a sense of fear in India. 
• Reporters allowed into home of San Bernardino shooters home. 
• Millennial Muslims are using apps to date.
• After two years, Taz's monthly Radical Love column has come to an end! Catch up - all the essays will be online right here.

Homework: Links for Episode 7

We recorded this Episode 7 of our podcast in front of a live studio audience in New York City! To follow along, check out the links below. 

This month, our Good Muslim award went to The Kominas for this awesome holiday song. 

• The awesome DJ Rekha was our dedicated DJ for the whole show and was on stage with us the whole time! Check her out here. 
• Our show was opened by comedy sets by Dina Hashem and Azhar Usman.
• We hosted a Poetry A Day for Ramadan writing group. Read our poems here. 
• Zahra performed at the Muslim Funny Fest in late July. 
• I attended the Netroots Nation conference this year. And I spoke on a panel called, "Love is a Revolutionary Act: Using Culture to Shift Narratives in Communities of Color."
• At the 2011 Netroots Nation, a bunch of us organized a HIjabi Flashmob against the right wing conference.
• #BlackLivesMatter activists stormed the stage at Netroots Nation in 2015 when the presidential candidates were speaking. 
• AJ+ news video on Sandra Bland.
• Chattanooga shooting and his diary entries.
• Taz was quoted in an article called, "Why Are We Still Asking Muslims to Condemn Terrorism?" 
• Zahra was quoted on a radio news piece called, "#GoodMuslimBadMuslim host ponders Washington's pact with Tehran and asks: When can we go home?"
• Somewhere in New York there is a "Muslim-Free" gun store...
• Flight attendant refused a can of soda to a Hijabi Muslim woman, and now can't interact with customers any more. 
• There are 1.57 billion Muslims in the world. In case you were wondering. 
• There is bacon-flavored kale now.  Also, bacon bits are vegan. 
• People in NYC eating at the halal carts don't even know what "halal" means! How creeping shahria is that?
• City of Farmersville, TX, people are scared for the Muslim zombies and are pushing the Muslim graves out of their city.
• Listen to the Good Cha Podcast by Deepa Crash, who also thankfully moderated our Q&A! Follow her podcast to hear the whole thing. 
• Taz is volunteering with Bay Area Solidarity Summer in Oakland. Check them out here!
• Thanks to the Asian American Writers Workshop for hosting our show - learn more about them here! 

Be Mine.

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Next time, on the #GoodMuslimBadMuslim podcast we talk about another twitter hashtag inspired art installation - The #MuslimVDay Cards! Initially started in 2011, Taz Ahmed painted her favorite hashtags into Valentines Day cards and mailed them out to her friends. Every year since then, she's been creating a series of six uniquely and politically charged punny cards. The cards set out to disrupt the narrative and make people think twice about the islamophobic rhetoric that exists - all while spreading love with cheeky snarky humor. Check out her full interview at Colorlines here.  

It is that time of the year again, and you can now buy your own set of #MuslimVDay cards! Pictured above is the latest #MuslimVDay 2015 set, but all four sets (for a total of 24 different images) are available for purchase at TazzyStar's Etsy Shop. Check out the shop and buy your cards here! 

And stay tuned for the next the #GoodMuslimBadMuslim podcast out in early February. 

Welcome to the Jungle

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Podcast forthcoming! Stay tuned!