Sudanese model slams magazine for mistaking her for another African model

Aug 27, 2019

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A Sudanese model is outraged and called out a magazine for “unintentional racism” for mistakenly featuring a picture of another Black model under her name.

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Adut Akech says she was interviewed by Who Magazine and ironically lent her voice to speak about racism and help to “change the way people view refugees.” However, the magazine pictured a different African model, Flavia Lazarus, who doesn’t look like her, but appeared on the pages under Akech’s name.

“It is racist but obviously I know it was not intentional. It was a mistake that wasn’t supposed to happen,” the 19-year-old said.

Lazarus said she was upset when she saw the error, The Daily Mail reports.

“We don’t have the same head shape, we don’t look the same except that we have the same skin color and a shaved head,” she said.

“I feel bad for Akech. She has worked her butt off and it makes you feel invisible.”

“Unfortunately the agency that set up our interview with Adut Akech supplied us with the wrong photograph to accompany the piece,” a spokesman for Who Magazine said.

“Who spoke directly with Adut to explain how the error occurred and have sincerely apologized.

“We also apologize to Flavia Lazarus for the misprint.”

“Hopefully the result of our misprint will be more people talking about this issue in the industry and tackling it head-on,” they concluded.

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However, Akech addressed the mistake on Instagram saying in part:

“I’ve have given some deep thoughts the past few days on how to approach this situation that isn’t sitting well with me.

“For those who are not aware, last week @whomagazine (Australia) published a feature article about me. In the interview I spoke about how people view refugees and peoples attitude to colour in general. With the article they published a large photo saying it was me. But it was of another black girl.
This has upset me, has made me angry, it has made me feel very disrespected and to me is unacceptable and inexcusable under any circumstances. Not only do I personally feel insulted and disrespected but I feel like my entire race has been disrespected too and it is why I feel it is important that I address this issue. “

View this post on Instagram

I’ve have given some deep thoughts the past few days on how to approach this situation that isn’t sitting well with me. For those who are not aware, last week @whomagazine (Australia) published a feature article about me. In the interview I spoke about how people view refugees and peoples attitude to colour in general. With the article they published a large photo saying it was me. But it was of another black girl. This has upset me, has made me angry, it has made me feel very disrespected and to me is unacceptable and inexcusable under any circumstances. Not only do I personally feel insulted and disrespected but I feel like my entire race has been disrespected too and it is why I feel it is important that I address this issue. Whoever did this clearly the thought that was me in that picture and that’s not okay. This is a big deal because of what I spoke about in my interview. By this happening I feel like it defeated the purpose of what I stand for and spoke about. It goes to show that people are very ignorant and narrowminded that they think every black girl or African people looks the same. I feel as though this would’ve not happened to a white model. My aim for this post is not to bash Who Magazine -they have apologised to me directly – but I feel like I need to express publicly how I feel. This has deeply affected me and we need to start an important conversation that needs to happen. I’m sure that I’m not the first person that’s experienced this and it needs to stop. I’ve been called by the name of another models who happens to be of the same Ethnicity, I find it very ignorant, rude and disrespectful towards both of us simply because we know that this doesn’t happen with white models. I want this to be somewhat of a wake up call to people within the industry it’s not OK and you need to do better. Big publications need to make sure that they fact check things before publishing them especially when its real stories and interviews and not just some made up rumors. To those who work at shows and shoots it’s important that you don’t mix up models names. Australia you’ve a lot of work to do and you’ve got to do better and that goes to the rest of the industry

A post shared by Adut Akech Bior (@adutakech) on Aug 25, 2019 at 5:34am PDT