mariamjachi Noor Tagouri is a journalist, activist and speaker. At 27 she’s built an aware and engaged community with over two million social media followers, while earning international praise as one of the new media’s most influential voices.
Noor’s inventive narrating ranges over media, emphasizing subcultures and marginalized communities within the U.S. Noor is a touring speaker with 10+ years of experience focused on identity, representation in media, and breaking barriers through storytelling. In 2019 Noor declared her counseling and production company, At Your Service. AYS works with partners to tell representatives stories as a form of service.
Noor Tagouri has been reading Vogue since she was a kid. So being able to see a woman in a hijab in Vogue was a big deal. Noor Tagouri was featured in the February 2019 issue of Vogue. Tagouri discovered her feature at JFK airport, where the magazine identified her as Pakistani actress Noor Bukhari.
At first she thought it was a typo, but realized it was not as she remembered it was not the first time people have misinterpreted and misidentified her work and career. Journalism is the only field she has worked in since she was 15, and it was hard to get recognition, since people are so baffled that a woman who wears a hijab works.
Vogue received a lot of backlash and disappointment from the public. Activist and writer Fawzia Maria responded by saying: “Come on Vogue, this woman is changing lives and narratives for Muslims and women around the world, and yet y’all got the most basic thing wrong — HER NAME. But y’all got the designers’ names right. Oh, also wrong? HER RACE. Are all Muslim women interchangeable?”
An editor sent out a note of a statement of “sincere regret”, posting it on the brand’s Instagram and Twitter accounts.
This is a bit weird though I mean this is VOGUE. Several editors, several revisions before publishing, everything is double checked and more! A former Vogue employee even said that if there were people of color in leadership this would have not happened, and that “There is a deep-seated discomfort with diversity at that brand, and it permeates through every inch of their DNA from the top down.”
As mentioned before this is not the first time Tagouri has been misidentified or misinterpreted, having her life put in danger. In January 2017, Raw Story misidentified her as the widow of the Pulse nightclub shooter. Also Condé Nast publications, Brides Magazine, used her photo in a wrong way. Preventive measures were taken, but unfortunately were ignored.
In the end all these actions are not a surprise. Media never did give Muslim women importance, or when they did it was only for their benefit and things were twisted to be able to give a story they thought people would want to hear, not what should be heard.
Which is why we need more women like Noor Tagouri always speaking up! We are far better than to allow such media to undermine us!
