Muslim-American journalist and activist Noor Tagouri who was featured in the February issue of Vogue Magazine was misidentified as Pakistani actress Noor Bukhari.
Tagouri who has been breaking stereotypes in America by being a hijabi Muslim journalist was looking forward to a “life-changing” feature in the magazine had found out that she’d be featured in its February issue.
Earlier, on Thursday she was ecstatic when she came across the issue on the shelves of John F Kennedy International Airport and turned the pages to find her pictures but when she read the text she realized that she had been misidentified as Pakistani actress Noor Bukhari.
The journalist took to her Instagram and shared a video of her reaction on wrote, “I’m so heartbroken and devastated.”
“We finally found the issue in JFK airport. I hadn’t seen the photo or the text. Adam wanted to film my reaction to seeing this for the first time. But, as you can see in the video, I was misidentified as a Pakistani actress named Noor Bukhari. My name is Noor Tagouri, I’m a journalist, activist, and speaker,” she added.
“I have been misrepresented and misidentified multiple times in media publications — to the point of putting my life in danger. I never, ever expected this from a publication I respect so much and have read since I was a child.”
“Misidentification is a constant problem if you are Muslim in America. And as much as I work to fight this, there are moments like this where I feel defeated,” she said.
She further took to Twitter and posted a screenshot of an email that was sent to Vogue’s team to ensure that there wouldn’t be an issue with mislabeling.
We even sent this email to @voguemagazine last week bc we this isn’t the first time I’ve been misidentified in publications. Got no response. pic.twitter.com/G5YVzSozqd
— Noor (@NTagouri) January 17, 2019
Vogue soon issued an apology on its social media channels.
“We are sincerely sorry for the mistake. We were thrilled at the chance to photograph Tagouri and shine a light on the important work she does, and to have misidentified her is a painful misstep,” the post read.
“We also understand that there is a larger issue of misidentification in media — especially among nonwhite subjects. We will try to be more thoughtful and careful in our work going forward, and we apologise for any embarrassment this has caused Tagouri and Bukhari,” the magazine wrote.
Following this, Tagouri reposted the magazine’s apology and noted that people should “teach, grow, build” from these mistakes.
“It isn’t always easy. But this is why we keep fighting.”
