A 14-year old high school freshman in Irving, Texas who likes to invent things made a clock and took it to his high school to show it to his new teachers, hoping that they would be impressed by his abilities. Oh, they were impressed all right. The Dallas Morning News describes what happened.
He showed it to his engineering teacher first thing Monday morning and didn’t get quite the reaction he’d hoped for.
“He was like, ‘That’s really nice,’” Ahmed said. “‘I would advise you not to show any other teachers.’”
He kept the clock inside his school bag in English class, but the teacher complained when the alarm beeped in the middle of a lesson. Ahmed brought his invention up to show her afterward.
“She was like, it looks like a bomb,” he said.
“I told her, ‘It doesn’t look like a bomb to me.’”
The teacher kept the clock. When the principal and a police officer pulled Ahmed out of sixth period, he suspected he wouldn’t get it back.
They led Ahmed into a room where four other police officers waited. He said an officer he’d never seen before leaned back in his chair and remarked: “Yup. That’s who I thought it was.”
Glenn Greenwald says that this is the latest evidence of the insanity that has been spawned by fear-mongering about Muslims in the glorious ‘war on terror’.
What happened in Irving, Texas yesterday to a 14-year-old Muslim high school freshman is far from the worst instance, but it is highly illustrative of the rotted fruit of this sustained climate of cultivated fear and demonization. The Dallas Morning News reports that “Ahmed Mohamed — who makes his own radios and repairs his own go-kart — hoped to impress his teachers when he brought a homemade clock to MacArthur High,” but “instead, the school phoned police.”
Despite insisting that he made the clock to impress his engineering teacher, consistent with his long-time interest in “inventing stuff,” Ahmed was arrested by the police and led out of school with his hands cuffed behind him. When he was brought into the room to be questioned by the four police officers who had been dispatched to the school, one of them – who had never previously seen him – said: “Yup. That’s who I thought it was.” As a result, he “felt suddenly conscious of his brown skin and his name — one of the most common in the Muslim religion.”
There’s absolutely no evidence that this was anything more than a clock, nor any indication of any kind that the talented and inventive freshman built it as anything other than a school project. But even now, “police say they may yet charge him with making a hoax bomb — though they acknowledge he told everyone who would listen that it’s a clock.” According to the BBC, “police spokesman James McLellan said that, throughout the interview, Ahmed had maintained that he built only a clock, but said the boy was unable to give a ‘broader explanation’ as to what it would be used for.”
Yes, it was clearly subterfuge on Ahmed’s part because what possible use could someone have for a clock in Texas where people can use sundials to tell the time?
The Dallas Morning News posted a video of the Terrorist Mastermind explaining what happened.
Scary, isn’t he? Clearly we need to be protected from the likes of these monsters. Today, it may be a mere clock. Tomorrow he might build a nuclear bomb that could destroy the entire state of Texas and initiate an ISIS takeover of the US. It is thanks to the vigilance of the high school and the police in Irving, Texas that we can sleep safely in our beds.
When timepieces are outlawed only outlaws will know what time it is.
“…but said the boy was unable to give a ‘broader explanation’ as to what it [the clock] would be used for.”
The jokes kind of write themselves here, don’t they?
What “broader explanation” is needed for a friggin’ clock? The complete lack of intellectual curiosity or understanding of people with intellectual curiosity shocked me when the police spokeperson said “The concern was, what was this thing built for?”
“Texas where people can use sundials to tell the time?”
I (sadly) live here, and near Irving too, and I don’t think this is true. You need to know which way is up to use a sundial!
If she genuinely thought it was a bomb, why the hell did she confiscate it? Clearly, she didn’t think it was a bomb, this is obvious bigotry.
But even now, “police say they may yet charge him with making a hoax bomb — though they acknowledge he told everyone who would listen that it’s a clock.”
I would have thought the correct response would be “Oh, we made a mistake, a really stupid goof. We apologize to everyone involved and we will try to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.”
But, then, I’ve never had police training, so what do I know?
And what are all the school administrators and police officials thinking right now as they watch the news?
I don’t know either, but I’m guessing it’s probably NOT “Wow! We’d better be careful, because we can also look this bad if we do something stupid, too!”
If they reallythought is was a bomb, the correct procedure would be to not touch it further and evacuate the school.
He showed it to his engineering teacher first thing Monday morning … “He was like, ‘That’s really nice,’” Ahmed said. “‘I would advise you not to show any other teachers.’”
Apparently the engineering teacher was the only (chronological) adult in the school with a functional brain. I would recommend that they expand his remit to teaching social studies, but it seems much more likely they will find a reason to fire him.
Pierce R. Butler, #9: I would recommend that they expand his remit to teaching social studies….
It certainly appears that Mohamed’s engineering project turned into a social studies project.
“the boy was unable to give a ‘broader explanation’ as to what it would be used for.””
IT”S A FUCKING CLOCK!!!!
Hanlon’s razor does not apply here. (Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.) They knew exactly what they were doing and why they were doing it.
Sounds to me like racism meets the usual school authoritarian nonsense with added police authoritarian nonsense afterward. The colleges I attended seemed to function differently but throughout grade school and highschool some of the staff and teachers seemed willing to pull this sort of nonsense whenever someone did something different and stood out. If you weren’t standing out in one of a couple well understood ways (being a jock, getting A’s) then it was treated like a bad thing. Hell, I was put on probation for a year once for leaving an optional pep rally to fill out paperwork to get a scholastic award. Yes, it really was that stupid.
Racism does indeed seem to be an obvious part of this. But I don’t think that’s the only problem here. When teachers and police can cause lasting problems for you because they say you COULD HAVE done something everyone acknowledges you did not do in both their actions and deeds, things have gone seriously off the rails.
What will this young terrorist become when he grows up?
http://boingboing.net/2015/09/16/apple-inventor-steve-wozniak-w.html
That’s not going to help me get to sleep, Mano, unless you give me a ‘broader explanation’ as to what the bed is used for.