Journalist Nayeema Raza’s new podcast, “Smart Girl Dumb Questions,” is all about embracing curiosity and realizing there’s no such thing as a dumb question. She shares her Brief But Spectacular take on learning from asking the questions we all wonder about.
Amna Nawaz:
Well, tonight for our reef but spectacular series, journalist and podcast host Nayeema Raza shares what she’s learning by asking the questions we all secretly wonder about.
Geoff Bennett:
Her new podcast called smart girl dumb questions is all about embracing curiosity.
Nayeema Raza, Host, “Smart Girl Dumb Questions”: So curiosity is one of these skills that I think we have in spades as children. And we actually continue to have it as adults, but we’re like closeted curious people. And instead of asking the question out loud, we’re like underneath the table, like, is taleggio a cheese or a sex act? What actually happened in Ireland? Why is that a good metaphor?
I feel like I grew up my whole life not knowing things. I’m Pakistani. I was born in the United States, but I grew up in Asia and Africa. And so I was constantly moving as a result of my father’s work at the World Bank. And I was always in cultures where I didn’t know stuff.
And because I was an outsider, I had the ability to ask questions. “Smart Girl Dumb Questions” is a new podcast that’s about asking the questions we all want to know the answers to. A dumb question I have that I want to figure out on the show is this shift of gender roles. How much of this is feminism and how much of it is about working more, buying more, being kind of an economic guzzler?
I, for example, feel a lot of pressure to have a bigger career because I don’t yet have kids. Or I know women who are really kind of finding they need to explain away the fact that they don’t have a career because they’re at home watching their kids. This expectation of, like, you need to want to have it all is absolutely wrong.
What my parents instilled in me at a young age was a ton of confidence that has lasted me a lifetime. My father, Aftab Raza, he unfortunately passed away a few years ago. One regret I have of not listening to my father while he was around was the kind of importance of showing up.
If it was like a third cousin, once-removed, kids, family friend, he would know about them and want to know about them. When I went to study in California, my father’s like, you got to call your cousin who’s out there. And I’m like, Dad, no kid in their 20s has time for these relationships.
When my father passed away, it was all of these people that showed up. What that showed me is that we live in a world where we talk a lot about boundaries and protecting self-care. But I think sometimes we don’t talk enough about kind of care of others in our community. And that’s a lesson that I learned the hard way through my father’s passing.
So I have been a journalist now for six years. I have been a video journalist at The New York Times opinion section, a podcast executive producer/editor at “Sway” at The New York Times and “On With Kara Swisher.”
I realized that I wanted to use my own voice more. And now it’s very exciting because I get to ask whatever I want to ask and be as smart or dumb as I hope to be on a given day.
I’m Nayeema Raza. I’m here for this episode of long but unremarkable.
Man:
How dare you?
Nayeema Raza:
My name’s Nayeema Raza, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on smart girl, dumb questions.
Amna Nawaz:
And you can watch more Brief But Spectacular videos online at PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.
