Current Events –
Muslim Student Arrested For Clock/Bomb?
When a teenaged boy took a homemade clock to his first day of school as a gift for his teacher, no one expected the day to end with the boy in handcuffs and everyone assuming the clock was a bomb.
Current Events
Well, that is exactly what happened to Ahmed Mohamed on Monday at MacArthur High School in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas. The bright 14-year-old, who happens to be Muslim, dreams of becoming an engineer and wanted to impress his teacher with the digital clock he’d made out of a pencil-case. Little did he know that his attempt at genius would be considered criminal.
Ahmed showed his teacher the clock he’d built from scratch, but instead of offering praise the teacher called the police.
“I built a clock to impress my teacher but when I showed it to her, she thought it was a threat to her,” Ahmed told reporters Wednesday. “It was really sad that she took the wrong impression of it.”
Ahmed was handcuffed, placed under arrest and even suspended from school — all before anyone actually bothered to verify that the clock was indeed a clock and not a bomb.
“They arrested me and they told me that I committed the crime of a hoax bomb, a fake bomb,” the freshman explained after authorities released him. “It made me feel like I wasn’t human. It made me feel like a criminal.” However, he never had a fake bomb. He never told anyone he had a bomb at all. He maintained all along that it was a clock, but everyone chose not to believe him.
According to Irving Police spokesman Officer James McLellan, “We attempted to question the juvenile about what it was and he would simply only tell us that it was a clock.” Although this may be presumptuous, perhaps the reason the child kept saying it was a clock is because IT WAS A CLOCK!!!
Police Chief Larry Boyd attempted to save face by saying Ahmed should have been more “forthcoming” by explaining more clearly that he made a clock (Ahmed did do that). However, since it was later determined that the teenager did not intend to harm anyone and the device, which the chief called “a homemade experiment,” was innocent, he was released.
Current Events
Make no bones about it, this is racism in its purest form. Because Ahmed is Muslim, it was automatically assumed that a homemade clock made by a child couldn’t possibly be a clock, but MUST be a bomb. Would the teen have been arrested and handcuffed if he were a white kid bringing a homemade clock to class? Of course not. A white kid once built a nuclear fusion reactor and it was considered cool. However, this Muslim kid built a clock and he was instantly arrested as an expected terrorist. NOT COOL!
The incredibly smart Ahmed, who aspires to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told reporters he was glad charges against him were dropped and that he wasn’t bothered when police didn’t apologize for arresting him. The school did suspend him for 3 days and, even after they determined that the clock was only a clock, they (oddly) chose to uphold the suspension — even though the child did nothing wrong.
Since the story went viral, celebrities from Russell Simmons to Questlove tweeted their support for the young teen, via the hashtag #IStandWithAhmed. Even President Obama offered his support.
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Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.
— President Obama (@POTUS) September 16, 2015
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Ahmed told reporters he is excited to accept the president’s invitation to the White House and is energized by all the support he has received.
As for the school, the principal requested to meet with Ahmed and his family — after his suspension was over. However, Ahmed said he has no plans to meet with the school because he will be transferring to a different high school, effective immediately. The young man made it clear he’d prefer to learn in an environment that encourages his tech skills, instead of fears him simply because he is Muslim.
Good for you, Ahmed!
(Sigh)…… Ya know….I would love to say "well it's Texas…Irving Texas no less…so what do you expect?" But the sad, and scary truth is…..given the Many inconvenient Truths about America since 9/11 (i.e. the belief that ALL Muslims should be viewed with suspicion) and certainly in recent years with heightened and constant FEAR-mongering of cynical and crazy-azz paranoid politicians serving in the highest positions of our government….the SAME absurd reaction could have just as easily taken place in any number of schools, in any number of cities and towns across America. I must also point that Ahmed actually showed his clock to another teacher First (a male teacher) and THAT teacher advised Ahmed NOT to show his invention to anyone else. Clearly, Ahmed could have spared himself a lot of grief had he only listened to that first teacher. On the other hand, let's be real. Had Ahmed Mohamed's name… Read more »