ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

Welcome to This Being Human. I’m your host Abdul-Rehman Malik. On this podcast, I talk to extraordinary people from all over the world whose life, ideas and art are shaped by Muslim culture. 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

My job isn't to write out the story. My job is to create space to receive it. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

Today, journalist Noor Tagouri on why she stopped worrying about representing others - and started creating spaces for people to tell stories on their own terms.

Noor Tagouri was first propelled into the public eye in 2012, when she was a teenage journalist. Her lifelong goal was to be the first woman in a hijab to anchor the news on American network TV.

While shadowing someone at ABC, Noor took a picture of herself in the anchor’s chair and shared it online with the caption “This is what my dream looks like.” The photo went viral, launching her into a career as a professional speaker, news correspondent and online personality. 

Noor is now approaching 30 and her perspective has evolved a lot since her early days in the spotlight. Her following has continued to grow – but she no longer wants to represent the masses; she just wants to tell important stories.

She now runs her own media company, At Your Service, which tackles major questions in society. Like her most recent podcast, Rep, which explores, quote “how the misrepresentation of Muslims in U.S. media has impacted American culture.” 

There is some brief, graphic content about war in this episode, so if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing, you might want to skip this one. 

I spoke to Noor over a video call during Ramadan. Her camera was turned off.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Noor, I really appreciate it. I know it's a stretch in Ramadan. 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

No, are you kidding? I've been recording podcast interviews every day, which is why like... But I also want to say, I'm off camera - one because I'm not going to lie, I kind of rolled out of bed a little bit ago. But two...

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

It's no problem. 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

Yesterday, I interviewed-- are you familiar with the book Secrets of Divine Love?

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Yeah, yeah. Helwa. 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

Yes. So, I interviewed Helwa for my podcast. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Wow. 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

And she's very anonymous. So she was off camera for her interview. And I ended up closing my eyes the entire time. I was on camera, but I ended up closing my eyes the entire interview. And it felt so powerful and channeled, and it was so beautiful. And I kind of loved it. So, I was just like, you know what? It kind of brings you into the-- I call it the theater of the mind. That's what I learned from school. As a medium of storytelling, I love using audio to paint imagery and sometimes you kind of have to go inward to be able to do that. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

Noor’s latest podcast, Rep, was actually meant to be a video project before COVID hit. But pivoting to audio turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

NOOR TAGOURI: 

Most of the interviews on that series, you wouldn't have gotten the same thing if there was a camera crew. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

The show features celebrities like Hasan Minhaj, Bella Hadid and Yusuf Islam, as well as intimate and sometimes difficult conversations with Noor’s own family members. Along the way, she shines an investigative lens on media ranging from Back to the Future to daytime TV, to try and understand how portrayals of Muslim have affected American society. The idea for the show has roots in Noor’s personal experience. 

NOOR TAGOURI:

Like, it has repeatedly been the test that God has given me, which is that literally, almost every single interview I had ever done had misrepresented me in at least one way. And it became this thing where we would hold our breath. And I at some point, like, stopped doing interviews. And I was just like, this is just too much work to have to clean up the mess because people aren't doing this right. And then somewhere along the line, I remember one of my teammates, she kind of took a pause. And she was like, “But like why does this keep happening?” And she kind of raised her eyebrow at it. And I immediately felt this question that I hadn't asked myself about this specifically: what is the role that I am playing in my own misrepresentation? And so that was the initial intention and approach was just like, how can I approach this investigation from this place of like, I think I know all of this, but I also have to reexamine myself. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

So, she got to work. She thought she knew the story she wanted to tell. And she expected the easiest part of the process to be booking the high-profile interviews.

NOOR TAGOURI: 

Because I was like, you know, I've been working in this space for over ten years. Like, I know all these people. I know who I want to interview. I can just text them. It's going to be fine. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

But people were turning her down.

NOOR TAGOURI: 

And it wasn't them saying no, it was their team. And it was funny because I remember one of them who's this amazing news anchor on American network news. And they were texting me and saying, “You know, maybe you can try saying this to my team. Maybe you can try saying this and they'll say yes.” And I was just like, How is it that you're one of the most established, prolific news anchors on network television and you're sitting here having to tell me how to convince your team to say yes to doing this.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Someone along the line felt it was, it was a threat. 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

And they wanted to, which is so interesting. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

That's fascinating. That's fascinating. 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

I know. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

You arrive into a kind of a different kind of ideational minefield here, isn't it? 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

Exactly. And I was really frustrated. And I remember where I was. I was in LA in the car and I was getting really emotional and I was like, What is this telling me about the story I'm trying to tell? And Adam very seriously said to me, “You're trying to control the story. And clearly, this isn't the story that is trying to be told and you need to let go.”

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

Adam, by the way, is Noor’s husband. Deadlines were looming. Noor was on a trip to LA and she had left one day open to try to book a major Muslim celebrity. But something else happened during her trip that led to a breakthrough.

NOOR TAGOURI:  

I was going to a fashion dinner, and I was getting my makeup done. And the artist was a Japanese woman from Hiroshima. And I said to her because a friend of mine, Mike Shinoda, he's an amazing artist. He's the rapper in Linkin Park. He's Fort Minor. He's Japanese American. When I had first told him about Rep the last time I was in LA, he was like, “You should absolutely speak to Japanese elders who were interned during World War Two in the camps here in the United States.” And I was like, Huh? Like why them? And he immediately, when I talked to him about misrepresentation, he related it to his own heritage and his own culture of being Japanese American and how misrepresentation impacted them. So that's always stayed with me. So, then I meet this Japanese makeup artist from Hiroshima, and I ask her, I say, you know, I have a crazy question. And funny enough, she was already familiar with my work. So she had thanked me and she was like, I didn't grow up in Japan hearing stories… basically what she was saying was like, very diverse stories the way that you present them. So thank you for amplifying, like different stories about people I had never heard of. And I was like, Whoa, thank you for saying that. By the way, any chance you know someone who was interned in one of the camps during World War Two? And she motioned her fingers, started touching her forearm, and she was showing me her goosebumps. And she said, my father-in-law was. And I said, Do you think that I may be able to talk to him? And we figured things out. And it ended up being that that Friday I had kept open was the only day he was available. It wasn't even that he was available. It was that the place that he lived in would allow visitors. So I was like, freaking out. I was like, I think that this is the story. And so we show up to this retirement home and I'm there to meet her father-in-law and her and her husband. And word got around that I was coming to document his story. And we sit down and then people just start showing up to our group. It was like one person after the other, after the other. All these elders, it turned out to be 12 of them who came.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Incredible.

NOOR TAGOURI: 

From all over. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Absolutely incredible. 

NOOR TAGOURI:  

And they all shared their stories for the very first time. To the point where her father-in-law and her husband got into a little debate during the interview because the father-in-law was telling his son, I never told you this before. And the son was like, but I thought you-- and he was like, No, I never told you this before. We were getting all of this. It was wild. 

And one of the fascinating things that happened at the end was that, one of the women who was interned, as a wrap up to the conversation says, “And you know, I've always felt for the American Muslims because after 9/11 happened, I had the same fear of what happened to us happening to them.” And so she was like, I marched every march, I fought, I protested because I knew. And she had made this connection in a way that I was so emotional. And I was like, this is why it's this story. 

I say this long anecdote because it was never about just the misrepresentation of Muslims. It was this was my entry point because this is what I had experience in. But the investigation after that point took a turn for the most expansive engagement I have ever had - facing the concept of truth, objectivity, representation, and story. And I'll never forget, because the woman who said that to me, her name was Kazuko. She said that if she could tell people one thing, it would be, you have to write your stories down. It's not enough to just talk about them. You have to write them down, you have to document them so that they are preserved. And it really changed something in me of like, what does it look like for us to take back our stories? And that conversation was so interesting because you know, they all met each other in this senior community, but they didn't all know each other when they were interned. Many of them were in different camps. Some of them found out that they were in similar ones. And they all had different perspectives on what it meant to be Japanese, what it meant to be American Japanese, what they identified with. And so that point was also a turning point for me in this series, because it was when I realized that these like identity labels, these generalizations, they're actually hurting all of us. And so when I think about what is the role that I was playing in my own misrepresentation, I realized I was telling the same story about myself over and over and over again. And oftentimes I didn't realize that that story had been filled with like a victim mindset that was injected into my story because you know, I started sharing my story when I was literally a teenager with an undeveloped brain. And I picked up the language and the rhetoric that people would use to validate my story, which was often like, “She was a victim. And then she got out of it and she was this and then she whatever.” And I'm just like, no, that's not how I see myself and that's not how I see my life. And so it really forced me into a really intense evolution that I'm still participating in right now, which just broke me open and gave me finally access to see myself outside of the politicization of my identity. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

There's a moment that you often return to, and that's this time in 1986 when five members of your extended family were killed as collateral damage in Libya after an American cruise missile attack. And I wonder at what point did you decide that your own family's history would be such a central part of the project? 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

I wanted to start with my family story of this experience, because I had recently watched Back to the Future with my brother, my little brother. And I had for the first time noticed that the opening scene were these like really wacky Libyan terrorists and I felt really uncomfortable. And so I decided to Google when Back to the Future came out versus when the bombing happened. And it turned out that Back to the Future came out nine months before the bombing happened. And so, I put together this connection of like, okay, this huge pop culture phenomenon laid the groundwork for this huge political event to feel like it was okay because we had dehumanized these people. And then had gotten a hold of my great uncle's archival footage because he had recorded everything during that time and I watched hours and hours and hours of archive. And I found this Phil Donahue segment, which Phil Donahue had this amazing show that I feel like we need. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

He really did. The Phil Donahue Show was a great show. Truly great show. 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

It was so good. Yeah. He has experts who have completely different perspectives. And then the entire show is engaging with the audience who all have completely different perspectives. And so he had this engaged form of public opinion going on. And so then I was able to see what different Americans thought and felt about what was happening that killed my family. And it was interesting because the-- oh my goodness, the opinions they had then are very different than the ones people have now. I felt like we had more compassion and empathy then because there were mothers who were saying how worried they were about their sons, saying, “Yeah, we're going to kick their asses.” And I'm just like, that's nothing compared to the stuff that people say now.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Yeah. 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

So there was this moment, this documentation that I had of this political event, this pop culture phenomenon, and then a documentation of what people's public opinion seemed to be at this time. 

The reason I ended up digging into his archival - I know this sounds like really whatever, but you're Muslim, so I feel like you can understand this - is that the night before I went into the archival, when I thought that the story was going to be something small, I had a dream. And it was my ancestors, took me into the home during the bombing which I know sounds really whatever, but... 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

It sounds horrifying and remarkable at the same time. 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

I remember the sound I had ringing in my ears even after I woke up. I remember the smell of burning flesh. I remember the heat. I remember the multiple explosions. I remember the image. Like, I painted the image. I wrote it. I had to write it afterwards because it was so vivid. But I woke up screaming. I was telling my husband, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. I don't want to-- I can't do this. I can't do this. And he had to literally hold me in a cold shower so that I could-- my body could calm down. And I couldn't leave my room to see the windows in my house for hours because in the dream, the bomb started out as like a light I saw in the window, like a fire. And it was the most intense dream experience I had ever had. But I remember the night before, I had texted my writing partner on the project, Zaron, and I said, I think it's wild that we're going to be writing this, doing this episode from the perspective of collateral damage. And when I woke up from this dream, I realized that the message was, and I kept saying it over and over again, is there's no such thing as collateral damage. People are not collateral damage. And I felt like they needed-- like my ancestors needed to tell me that, needed to show me the severity. And it was after that, that that became the whole episode. And I said, I have to honour the story because, like, if that's the only thing that I do, that's what I need to do. And the crazy part about that is it was exactly two weeks later that the episode, Alive, which is our finale episode happened where it's this miracle at Harvard University while I'm speaking there. And a woman in the audience gets up and she has a question for me.

CLIP - BARBARA ROSEWICZ

Hi, hi this is Barbara Rosewicz…

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

And she tells me that she stood in the house.  

CLIP - BARBARA ROSEWICZ

I stood in that house. I stood in that house the morning after the bombing.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

She was a Wall Street journalist. And she was exactly my age when she was there in '86. And she had never forgotten that. She said that story had left a print on her mind that she could never forget. 

CLIP - BARBARA ROSEWICZ

I want you know that there were a group of American journalists, Western journalists, who were in Tripoli for anticipation of there being those kinds of hostilities. And the role of journalists, we felt that the most important contribution that I made was to be there, to witness it, and to write it.

NOOR TAGOURI: 

And we ended up reuniting. She ended up living an hour away from my parents and my family's house. So we all reunited and she brought the stories that she had printed that she said she had to fight to publish because the U.S. government at the time didn't want to acknowledge any of the casualties. And she was like, no, there were. And she actually was the first time that any of us had ever seen a potential number documented of how many people died. Because the whole time when I grew up hearing that story, I thought it was just my family because that's the only way I heard it. But I never really thought, obviously, if it's a bombing, like multiple people died. And her writing, her reporting said it was around 100 people and that even then that was never confirmed. So this whole thing happened within weeks of each other.

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

I mean, it's such a remarkable story. And I've seen the recording of it online and it's a kind of a moment of genuine revelation. You can feel it from your reaction. You can see it on your face. People often talk about closure, but I wonder if there was some sense of closure or some sense of kind of coming to terms after all of this time with this thing that had happened that had shaped your entire life and the life of the people who you were closest to, the people you love the most. 

NOOR TAGOURI:  

Yeah, totally. Thank you. I share that story because it's a testament to what happens if you just take a couple steps towards documenting your own ancestry, your own history, your own story, and you take the pen into your own hands. And I really believe that storytelling is a form of justice. And so to me, this moment was more closure than we could have gotten from like a political apology or something, because it was.. It was a raw account of a witness who had still carried the experience in her body. 

Now the story has had access to so many people in this truth, in this way. And, you know, after that, I had so many people reach out to me about like, my family member died in a bombing too and my family and then I'm like, oh my god, we hear about American bombs dropping every single day. Like we are the descendants of those people. And sometimes I think about how like, that's wild that the American bombs dropped and killed my family members and had no idea that I would be the descendant. Like that one of their descendants would be an American journalist who could document it. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

So does the sense of justice come from the bare telling of the truth? 

NOOR TAGOURI:  

It's an interesting question because I feel like I haven't really shared this answer in this way before or been asked it, but just like what Rep taught me about how every single person has their own individual story and that it's dehumanizing to ever generalize anybody or lump anybody. I feel the same way about this question about justice because justice and closure for who? For me, in that moment, as a descendant who had heard about the story, who had seen how it's impacted my family, it was incredibly healing. For some of my family members who were children, like my mom or my dad or my uncles and stuff, that it was healing, right? But I remember there was a family member who was there in Libya at the bombing. My mom or someone like had shared the video with like in their family WhatsApp group and their relatives in Libya had seen it too. And one of them was really upset, actually. And he was like, You guys weren't there to pick up the flesh and bones of our brothers and sisters and children. And he said, You guys will never understand what it feels and what it means to pick up the body parts of your loved ones. And so he had anger. And I think that anger is probably because maybe he saw that this was a healing moment for people who had never even seen… like the extent in which, like my mom or my grandparents or my great uncle had seen was they saw their uncle's body on television, on CNN, like that's how they knew. But they weren't picking up the pieces. And he describes it that way. And that's something that a human being should never have to go through. And so is it justice for that person? I don't think they felt like it was. I remember I was a little taken aback by that reaction. But I also had complete empathy and compassion because I was like, Yeah, you're right. I will never know that feeling. I will never know. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

As you say that I'm reminded of almost, I don't know if I would call it a paradox in your own narrative, but let me put it to you like this. Eight years ago when you gave that wildly popular TEDx talk, you spoke about putting yourself forward with the aspiration that you were going to be the person to represent the 10,000. And then more recently, and even in the last few moments, you speak in a way that very carefully says, I can't speak for anyone else, I can only speak for myself. I can't speak for all Muslims or all Libyans or all Arabs or all women or all Arab women. But I can speak for myself. How did you move from the "I'm going to be the voice for the 10,000” to “I can only be Noor's voice." 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

I grew up. It's a very timely question. And I actually, I genuinely appreciate you asking it because, I said to Adam yesterday, I said, I think it's time that I watch that TEDx talk that I gave and try to finally understand, like, what it was that I was saying. I mean I still carry that notion very close of the Maya Angelou quote, "I come as one, but I stand as 10,000", which to me, I see now more like, I carry like the legacies of my ancestors with me and in me and that they have given me the strength to be able to do what I do. You know, my great grandmother, who I knew all my life, she couldn't read. And my grandmother, who I still talk to every week, like she was married when she was 15. She was pulled out of school at eighth grade. And then my mom has a master's degree and was a guidance counselor and runs a nonprofit. And now I get to do the things that I get to do. And so I'm very, very aware of, like where and who I've come from. I also realized that part of that notion of aiming to represent a people is also dehumanizing because it also contributes to that generalization. Because then we take away the focus from seeing people as individual people. 

On a personal level, I realized that I had been carrying this responsibility and while I felt like I was always being completely true to myself and I always felt like I was being authentic and I was telling the truth, I think I was doing that to the extent in which I knew the truth about myself but I didn't always tell myself the truth about me. And I share this with you because I am currently in this moment where I'm rethinking my choice to cover my hair, which is something that I've done since I was 15 years old. I'm turning 30 this year and I… so it's exactly half of my life that I've been doing it. And you know within the same weeks that I got my first journalism job. I started journalism when I was 15. I got a job at a local newspaper as a writer. And so I had immediately kind of gotten this like attention fairly young. And so I carried a lot of this with me. And I was like, you know what? I kind of use that as a way to really start to believe in my identity, believe in myself, and feel this responsibility of representing something bigger because there wasn't a lot of representation. And now as I'm approaching 30, I'm also realizing that I had never really given myself the space or opportunity to like, figure out what I actually believe and who I actually am and, and ask myself deeply and truly, Why do you do this? And to me, it's like a really scary thing to do things without knowing why. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Noor, you're saying that and I mean if you could see me, I'm smiling. Because it's something that I asked and I was going to be really honest with you and ask you exactly the question that you're asking yourself, you know, who is Noor Tagouri? Because I have a confession to make Noor... 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

Please. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

I've been following your work and journey for a long time. And, you know, it's been at times totally fascinating and sometimes really frustrating to follow. 

NOOR TAGOURI:  

[laughs] Yeah. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

And, you know, I see you, so many people see you as so many things. You know, journalist, influencer, brand ambassador, Ted speaker, podcast host, you know, chronicler of life. And to think that at least in the public eye, and I know it's much more complicated than that, but in the public eye, it always felt like it was fueled right by this earnest aspiration - wanting to be the first hijab wearing anchorwoman on American TV, that Facebook post which went viral comes to mind, you know?

NOOR TAGOURI: 

Yeah. From when I was 18. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Exactly. And you've come a long way since then. But you're asking the question that I as someone who follows your work and has been totally mesmerized by the way by Rep and it is such a meaningful and powerful-- I wouldn't even call it a program. It's a meditation and it's a journey. And I want to thank you for that. But I still find myself asking, who is Noor Tagouri? And so to hear that you're asking yourself that question feels like, okay, it's okay for me to confess this to you and be really honest. And to say that I'm in a way still struggling to understand you and your work. 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

Thank you. I mean, thank you for sharing that. Thank you for being so honest and so tender with your words and so kind, you know. People have tried to say things like that to me and it has not always been very kind. So I appreciate that. You know, I mean, my goal of wanting to be the first hijabi news anchor on American television. That actually changed very quickly, like when that went viral and stuff like.. yeah. But when I got into local news as a reporter and I did a couple of anchoring spots. I actually hated it. Because somebody else was writing the script for me and I was sitting at a desk and reading a teleprompter. I am not a teleprompter person. Like, I'm a very intuitive speaker. I want things to be genuine. And I wanted my reporting boots on the ground. So I knew reporting was where it was at for me. But then I also didn't want to limit myself to that. So I was a touring speaker and I was doing things in fashion and I was-- and I remember people hated that. People hated that I did so many things. And I'm just like, you know what? The fact that I did so many things is why I have At Your Service now. It's why I've been able to actually build a business, because by the way, there's no money in journalism. Like I was getting at that local reporting job... 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

I'm with you. 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

I was like, my salary was like 20 something, 20 something thousand dollars a year or something like that. But I was also doing speaking engagements, which, like, I could essentially make that in a couple of speaking engagements. So I was never in journalism for that. It was because I felt like I needed to do it. And when I felt like I couldn't tell the stories I wanted to, I quit local news and I decided to pick up a camera and do things myself. And so that evolution happened very authentically. But Rep in a lot of ways, it was such a gift to me. And it was why like what you're saying about it is also why like against everyone's advice, I decided not to put my face on the cover. I decided not to put my name on it. It didn't feel like it belonged to me, even though it was very personal and the personal stories in it. But it felt like it was for everybody who touched it. And I saw, I witnessed that. I still witness that with our Rep club where these people from every country you can think of who've begun traveling the world and documenting their own stories, and we share it with each other every single day, like it's been so transformative for so many people. And it's been such a gift for me in many ways. One: where I can finally start to ask myself these questions, but two: where I can finally redefine what community looks like and what community means. Because I think for a very long time, I always thought community was Muslim people because that's how I grew up. And it was like, Oh the community. Oh the community. But then come 2016, I do an interview about my work in Playboy magazine and then the world breaks and my world breaks. And, you know, I was literally on my way to go do a talk in London, and it was like a Muslim organization that was putting it together. And their main sponsor pulled out of the event because I had done a Playboy interview talking about my work. And it was a very challenging time because I had never felt-- I didn't even realize that it was going to, like, cause such chaos and rejection from the, quote unquote, "community." And so I felt like in a way, I kind of got kicked out of it. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Because then I had to figure out what that meant, what that looked like for me. And in our Rep club and the book club that we have in our AYS community, I have finally figured out what that looks like. And it is surrounding yourself with curious people, loving people who believe in stories as a form of service, who ask really big questions about God and what it means to be alive and who hold space for each other. It's a community that just chooses to like, witness each other and listen and not try to change, not try to convert, not try to do anything except for love and to witness each other. And in that, I feel like I have finally been able to start asking like, who is Noor today? 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Noor Tagouri, tell me about a joy that has recently come to you as an unexpected visitor. 

NOOR TAGOURI:  

The thing that's coming to mind right now is a conversation I had a couple of days ago with my 12 year old brother. And he's like, one of my biggest inspirations. He's very wise. And it's funny because I recorded this conversation. I asked him to because he had started it out with, “Noor I figured out the meaning of life.” And I literally was like, “Can I record this?” And he was like, “Yeah.” 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

I love it. 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

I said, “Yeah, what's the meaning of life?” And he said, “The meaning of life is just what you make of it.” And I was like, “Tell me more.” And he was like, “Well, life is just a series of decisions that you make. So if you're looking for the meaning, it's just what you make of all of the decisions that you make.” And I thought that that was so profound and I felt like it was a good time to share with him. “Well, you know, I'm like really contemplating this big decision that I'm pretty nervous about.” I was telling him about my decision with the hijab. And I shared it with him and he smiled. And he was like, “You do you. You got to do what feels right for you.”

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:

Noor, what a pleasure it has been spending this time with you. And thank you. Thank you for your honesty and for exploring your work. And I'm so excited to continue to see where this journey leads you. 

NOOR TAGOURI: 

Thank you. Thanks for giving me the space to be exactly who I am today. 

ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:

Thank you for listening to This Being Human. You can find links in the show notes to some of Noor’s work.

This Being Human is produced by Antica Productions in partnership with TVO. Our senior producer is Kevin Sexton. Our associate producer is Hailey Choi. Our executive producer is Laura Regehr. Stuart Coxe is the president of Antica Productions.

Mixing and sound design by Phil Wilson. Original music by Boombox Sound.

Shaghayegh Tajvidi is TVO’s Managing Editor of Digital Video and Podcasts. Laurie Few is the executive for digital at TVO.

This Being Human is generously supported by the Aga Khan Museum. Through the arts, the Aga Khan Museum sparks wonder, curiosity, and understanding of Muslim cultures and their connection with other cultures. For more information about the museum go to www.agakhanmuseum.org

The Museum wishes to thank The Hilary and Galen Weston Foundation for their generous support of This Being Human.

In the episode, Noor talks about:

Quotes: 

"My job isn't to write out the story. My job is to create space to receive it."

"…you have to write your stories down. It's not enough to just talk about them. You have to write them down, you have to document them so that they are preserved."

"I really believe that storytelling is a form of justice."

Learn more about Noor Tagouri:

Noor’s Website

Noor’s backstory

TEDxTalk: Calling on the 10,000

Noor's Instagram                              

A panel discussion at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics (starts at 20:40)