On Monday, a 14-year-old Texas high school student named Ahmed Mohamed brought a homemade clock to school to show his teachers. It looked like a clock because, well, it was a clock, yet one of the teachers thought it looked like a bomb. This lead to Mohamed, a member of the robotics club, being arrested. While the charges have been dropped, many feel this all happened because Mohamed is brown. What also emerged was the international trending hashtag #IStandWithAhmed and people like Mark Zuckerberg, Hillary Clinton and this guy coming out of the woodwork to support him:
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
Team Blackness also discussed Facebook’s new dislike button, James Blake’s run-in with police, and a Texas cop who shot a wall after being shot down by a woman.
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Myiq2xu
Will the Secret Service let Ahmed bring his clock into the White House? (Assuming that TSA lets him bring it on the plane.)
redshirt
This story made me sick, but then the response made me happy.
America in a nutshell.
Frankensteinbeck
Thank you so much, Obama. You’ve turned a crushing experience for a bright young person into an encouragement to excel.
Elizabelle
I’m sorry Ahmed had to go through this trauma, but he came through it much better, with an even brighter future. As did we all.
The nimnuts at the school and police (whose chief is still calling it a “hoax bomb”): not so much. Would love to be fly on the wall there.
Ahmed said he’s planning to change schools. Anyone hear any updates there?
The last great thing about the story: what an excellent job the Dallas Morning News reporter did. Kudos.
Calouste
The teacher thought it looked like a bomb, but didn’t have the school evacuated. Shows how much they believed their own bullshit.
And for it being a “hoax bomb”, wouldn’t the person with the clock actually need to claim it was a bomb for it to be a hoax bomb?
kc
Tsk.
ET
A boy this smart does need to change schools because clearly this one is going to be deficient for someone so smart and creative.
Rhetorical question – if his name had been Adam and he was blond if this would have ever happened? Once again someone in Texas showing me that I NEVER EVER want to live there and showing everyone else how stupid their education system is making their citizens.
Belafon
@Calouste: Pretty sure some wingnut is working on the video showing this right now. It’ll probably also claim the clock performs abortions.
Doug R
On that “dislike” button-word is it’s going to be an empathy button. …
Seanly
I’m glad that Obama is inviting the kid to the White House.
father pussbucket (fka gnomedad)
I thought maybe one of the goopers last night would seize the opportunity (a Sister Souljah moment, if you will) to disapprove of the Terror Clock shitshow. I was wrong.
Area Man Willing To Give Up Any Of Muslims’ Rights Necessary To Feel Safe
HumboldtBlue
@ET: You know damn well the answer to that rhetorical question.
What if his name was Taylor and he built a fucking working nuclear powered reactor at his parent’s house. He got help from the fucking Energy Department to finish the project.
@Frankensteinbeck:
Watch his interview with Chris Hayes and his reaction when a department head from MIT invites him to tour the campus and the astrophysics labs. Priceless.
redshirt
@ET: Can’t know. White college kids created a lite brite sculpture from a cartoon that had Boston on lockdown a few years back.
People do get hysterical around terrorism and school shootings.
Patrick
Does anyone know why he is still suspended? Heck, even the idiots at the Texas school must know by now he did nothing wrong.
Patrick
@Belafon:
Don’t tell Carly Fiorina…
EZSmirkzz
And to think some people have the temerity to say we live in the stupidest country on Earth.
Cacti
Ahmed, your school is a sewer.
Escape with all possible haste.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Betty Cracker
@kc: Is that a spoof or a person who truly doesn’t grasp the concept of metaphors?
benw
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Seriously, I remember back in high school, it was like “Islam, Islam, Islam, Mohammed, Mohammed, Allah…” all fucking day long.
sharl
@kc: If you find that sort of thing intriguing, here’s another twitter thread that might strike your fancy. I found it confusing, sad, and a bit creepy, but YMMV.
Tommy
@Frankensteinbeck: Yes that. Yes, yes, yes.
Punchy
#Dork Lives Matter
Mike J
Two pictures taken in Texas.
Thoughtful Today
Religious bigotry was the greater offense in this particular instance.
Though absolutely it was likely mixed with a nasty dose of racism.
ymmv
scav
Texas and education. Not a good mix. Especially with all that dangerous misleading “Science”. They are rather running true to type at the official level certainly.
ThresherK
@father pussbucket (fka gnomedad): At least Huckabee didn’t invite Kim Davis onstage at the debate so she could stand with him.
Belafon
@Thoughtful Today: Maybe you can split it, but how would they have known he was a threatening Muslim terrorist otherwise.
As someone pointed out, a rather famous Arab American used to take his electronics projects to school: Steve Jobs.
Tommy
@Mike J: When I read the story first it noted Ahmed had a NASA shirt on. How cool is that. Make shit. Reach for the stars. Get it on!
Elizabelle
Here’s the story that broke about Ahmed, somewhat updated, by Dallas Morning News.
Reporter who broke the story is Avi Selk. Did an outstanding job.
Wish I’d saved the text of the initial story in, I think, USA Today. It was much more deferential to the school authorities and not very warm towards Ahmed. Startled me, having seen the much more detailed and sympathetic hyperlocal story by Mr. (?) Selk.
Tried to find the original text — USA Today is all glowing about Ahmed now — they might have changed it once the social media phenom started.
Did anyone else see that? I will share it if I find it.
The NY Times was more cut and dried too, but it provided a link to that awful, ass-covering parents’ letter from the principal. Which told NYT readers a lot. What was left out was way more interesting than what Cummings put in.
Oatler.
There’s no happy ending to this tale if the school Ahmed transfers to is still in Texas.
Roger Moore
@ET:
Some parts of it, like the part where he got reported to the principal and even when he got arrested, might well have; zero tolerance policies encourage schools to overreact. But it’s clear that his ethnicity made a freakout like this a lot more likely, especially in a community that’s already freaking out about Islam, which Irving apparently is. And the follow-up is especially awful. A white student probably would have gotten some kind of admission that the school had made a mistake, even if it were only a weak one about “acting with an abundance of caution” or “following a zero tolerance policy”. Instead, the school district is continuing to act as if it did nothing wrong and trying to blame the whole thing on Ahmed rather than their own overreaction.
Roger Moore
@Patrick:
Because that would be a tacit admission that the whole thing was a mistake. The district has already decided that the whole thing is Ahmed’s fault, and they aren’t going to back down now.
SiubhanDuinne
@Tommy:
The nice thing is, apparently someone (an engineer) at NASA also noticed that and invited young Ahmed to visit. Between that, and the White House, and private MIT campus tour, and hanging out with Col. Hadfield in Toronto, the kid’s not going to have much time to attend school, wherever he ends up.
I am so happy that this initially awful story had a good ending. I hope it’s the kindness and support and generosity of his fellow Americans that the young man remembers and not the idiotic short-sightedness and narrow-mindedness of the teachers and cops.
MomSense
@HumboldtBlue:
I cried at the end of that interview. Thre professor from MIT said it so well. Ahmed is the kind of students teachers hope for. Ahmed was so tickled to think about going to his dream college.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: “He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation.”
Because it was a fucking clock. The broader explanation is you have shit for brains.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT: Michelle Cottle and a Democratic poll analyst both just said what Carly Florin said about PP was great,, because she successfully appealed to the Republican base and got attention (Cottle) and she was a great role model for young women because she was tough and strong (Dem pollster Margie Omera) The fact that she was lying about the PP videos, neither disputed, didn’t come into their analysis.
bluehill
He should have just brought an AR-15 to school. No questions asked.
Patrick
@Roger Moore:
Thanks for the response.
Since he was arrested in the first place, doesn’t that mean that any future employer who does a background check on him, find out that he was arrested and pass on him as a new hire? Convicted or not convicted doesn’t mean much sometimes. Just because some people in a school (of all places) are narrow-minded.
Patrick
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Can’t they claim the same thing about Sarah Palin, ie tough, strong and a big liar?
Jay C
@Patrick:
Assuming that Ahmed Muhamed is just 14 now, one would have to assume that he won’t be seriously looking for work until he leaves college, at the earliest, say 8-12 years from now, depending (maybe) on what level of graduate work he might take.
Any future “employer” in 2028 who would pass on hiring Ahmed because of this flash-in-the-pan non-scandal from 2015 is probably not the sort of place he would want to work at in any case.
Thoughtful Today
Religious bigotry.
““The mayor of Ahmed Mohamed’s town is a well-known conservative folk hero for fighting fake Muslim ‘threats’.”
Spike it with racism and you’ve got an, uh, explosive mix.
Patrick
Let’s hope so. He was arrested for bringing a bomb to school. That’s quite a charge.
RK
The kid mishandled things. He simply had to explain that it was an anti-evolutionary clock for Jesus.
JPL
Briston Palin said that inviting Ahmed to the White House was a mistake and it’s a reason why this President divides the nation.
@RK: lol
louc
@Patrick: Since he’s a juvenile, it’s sealed, unless they charged him as an adult.
louc
PS Can I say how much I love this kid, his nerdiness, his dimples, and his NASA t-shirt?
sharl
@Betty Cracker: Sincere folks like that really exist on Twitter, although there are some very good parodists there as well – Poe’s Law and all that.
The best and worst thing about Twitter is that anyone can join, and then – as long as you don’t threaten or doggedly harass* others – you can say damn near anything. The person I linked to (comment #21) is only 21 years old, so is still at a good age for learning how to engage socially, but she seems to lack a friend or trusted confidante who can stage a helpful intervention on her behalf. Lacking such a helpful ally, at some point the mockery begins – that’s how she came to my attention in the first place – and it can get quite awful, although I seem to recall that she has banned over 10,000 people so far, so she is not without her defenses. She is a very determined Anti-Ableist young Warrior…
*The rules on what gets you banned or otherwise sanctioned are a thing of ongoing discussion at Twitter HQ and among tweeters themselves.
Mike J
@JPL: She said: “This is the kind of stuff Obama needs to STAY out of. This encourages more racial strife that is already going on with the “Black Lives Matter” crowd and encourages victimhood.”
Perhaps the best way to prevent people from feeling like victims is to stop victimizing them.
JPL
@MomSense: Like you, I wiped away a few tears.
PurpleGirl
@Patrick: BJ lawyers — wouldn’t Ahmed’s record be expunged at some point, or he could sue to have the record expunged because it wasn’t a bomb and there was no further action taken against him?
JPL
@Mike J: The thought of her raising another child scares me.
HumboldtBlue
@MomSense: I wanted to hug and kiss the boy, as Wonkette said we need to find a way to bottle his smile and produce it as an anti-depressant. Simply beautiful and he went full dork with his “that’s a fact right there” and then got all sheepish.
Roger Moore
@Patrick:
They shouldn’t. Juvenile records are supposed to be sealed. Personally, I don’t think anyone should be allowed to consult arrest records in the first place. I can understand a legitimate need to know if somebody has been convicted of a work-relevant offense, and I can kind of see why people would want to know about a prosecution that resulted in an acquittal. But an arrest that never resulted in charges is simply not relevant; it’s far more likely to be a result of misconduct on the part of police than it is to be a serious indication of how good an employee somebody would be.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL: She strikes me as unhappy and unpleasant young woman. I feel sorry for her and her kids.
OT:
PurpleGirl
@Mike J: Bristol Palin should learn to STFU because she’s an ignorant idiot who doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Having two kids does not make her an adult, nor does her age. I feel sorry for her kids.
shell
@JPL: The idea that anyone should listen to anything Bristol Palin says, is a mistake.
Thoughtful Today
In our Internet era, short of a EU-type “right to be forgotten” law, innocent kids like this will be tarnished for their entire lifetime.
Fortunately the backlash to this bigotry will protect this particular kid.
Without the backlash… a lot of kids are going to be screwed by what pops up about them on the Internet.
Roger Moore
@Thoughtful Today:
At some point, though, it’s all going to fade into the noise. If everybody has done something incredibly embarrassing and had it posted on Facebook/YouTube/Twitter/etc., people are going to stop caring so much because they would otherwise wind up disqualifying everyone. Only people with something especially bad in their history- or maybe a history that looks so perfect it can only have come about by being scrubbed of incriminating evidence- will have trouble. I don’t think “I was arrested but not charged because my school ethnically profiled me” is going to count as especially bad.
mai naem mobile
This may be a bit of an exaggeration but this could end up being one of the best things to happen to Ahmed. I did a quick search on top high schools in Dallas(I believe its in the Dallas metro area.) MacArthur wasn’t even in the top 50. Chances are he’s going to end up going to a better school and hopefully he’ll get into those summer college programs for high school kids. I know MIT has a free but very competitive one.
JPL
@mai naem mobile: Dallas has some excellent private schools and hopefully one of them will step forward to offer him a scholarship. His grades must be pretty good since no one released his report card to the whackos.
Cervantes
@Roger Moore:
Elaborate?
Cervantes
@JPL:
Well, at least she admitted that “the police made a mistake, clearly.”
More than certain others have done.
WaterGirl
@JPL:
Excellent point!
I am so hoping this has a happy ending like we got with Elizabeth Warren. Oh, you don’t want her to head up the organization that was her brainchild? Okay, I guess she’ll be able to find some other way to make a difference…
Morzer
I hope Ahmed Mohamed keeps his love of science and technology, gets the best education possible and makes it so big that one day the people of Bigotville go down on their knees and beg him to notice them.
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
Yes, I did see that and shook my fist at my computer screen.
MomSense
@JPL: @HumboldtBlue:
His smile was so beautiful. Sometimes in the midst of bigotry and ignorance, beautiful things can happen.
Roger Moore
@JPL:
Just give them time.
daveNYC
@HumboldtBlue: Naw, that was just a fusion reactor, awesome but not particularly threatening. You should have mentioned David Hahn. That guy turned his back yard shed into a Superfund site while trying to build a breeder reactor.
redshirt
Ahmad probably just got an MIT entrance ticket. Pretty awesome.
Capri
@shell: The right can turn anything into a reason to feel butt hurt. One of my more conservative “friends” on facebook shared the sentiment that Obama was racist because he invited this kid to the White House but has yet to invite a single slain policeman’s child.
Paul in KY
@Calouste: I think you paint ‘ACME Bomb’ on it.
Paul in KY
@benw: Me too! God, I got sick of hearing about the Suras & Mohammed (peace be upon him), etc. etc.
Paul in KY
@shell: Bristol Palin is a lowlife, POS, craptoid who should always be mocked & laughed at.
Donalbain
Worth remembering that Bristol Palin doesn’t write her own blog. It is written by Nancy (wife of David) French.
Beverly Lawrence
Ahmed I am so proud of you. I wish we had more students like you. The only thing tat bothers me besides the ignorance of those teachers is that I was told that you may have that on your record forever. I hope that is not true. Keep on inventing. We do have good people in this country.