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[BBC.com]
A 14-year-old boy was arrested by police in Texas after a homemade clock he wanted to show his school teachers was mistaken for a bomb. Ahmed Mohamed told US media that he had made a clock at home and brought it into MacArthur High School in Irving to show his engineering teacher.
Another teacher saw it and, concerned it looked like a bomb, alerted school authorities who called the police.
His father fears the incident happened because of his son's Muslim background. The Council on American-Islamic Relations says it is investigating the incident. |
Commentary (Kevin Aherne)
Classic Texas being Texas. I'd love to understand the logic of the English teacher and the administrators who felt that contacting police was in order, but I can't. And I would like to hear the justification by police to put this 14-year old kid in cuffs while wearing a NASA t-shirt, but there is none. We live in this zero-tolerance bubble that evades all logic in the pursuit of security. Kids are being suspended from school for having a butter knife in their lunch, children are being sent home for making finger guns on the playground. It is a failure in discretion. It is the death of common sense.
Classic Texas being Texas. I'd love to understand the logic of the English teacher and the administrators who felt that contacting police was in order, but I can't. And I would like to hear the justification by police to put this 14-year old kid in cuffs while wearing a NASA t-shirt, but there is none. We live in this zero-tolerance bubble that evades all logic in the pursuit of security. Kids are being suspended from school for having a butter knife in their lunch, children are being sent home for making finger guns on the playground. It is a failure in discretion. It is the death of common sense.
Both of these photos were taken in Texas. Let that sink in for a moment.
#IStandWithAhmed pic.twitter.com/NQCZ9rW2lw
— Muhammad ShehrOze ツ (@Shehr0ze) September 16, 2015
But then, there is the wrinkle of inherent Islamophobia. Would this teacher have the same level of concern with this clock had the student been named Justin Smith, or Tim Davis? I doubt it. I do also doubt that this was done out of hate, but rather from ignorance. Either way, let's not let Ahmed Mohamed's creativity and passion die in handcuffs. Let's do what we can to combat such ignorance and suppression of free thought.
