Ahmed Mohamed (2001?- ) is an American high school student who was arrested for bringing a home-made clock to school. His teacher thought it was a bomb.
This was on Monday September 14th 2015 in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. The next day, a picture of him, a 14-year-old boy in a NASA T-shirt in handcuffs, was posted on Twitter. Twitter went nuts. Even President Obama tweeted his support and invited him to the White House.
Mohamed made his home-made clock (pictured below) out of a circuit board, some wires and a digital display. It beeped too. At his old school he was the Inventor Kid. Just starting high school, he wanted to impress his engineering teacher. His teacher liked it, but told him not to show it to the other teachers.
He put it away, but during English class it started beeping. His English teacher thought it was a bomb. The police took him away in handcuffs.
The police did not think it was a real bomb – they did not call the bomb squad or clear the school. They thought Mohamed was trying to make a “hoax bomb”, meant to look like a time bomb in a Hollywood film.
They questioned him. He asked for his parents to be there. They refused, breaking Texas law about questioning children. He became conscious of his brown skin and his Muslim name. They made him feel like a criminal, like he was less than human.
The police kept trying to get him to admit it was a bomb. He kept saying it was a clock. He never told anyone otherwise. They did not buy it: why would anyone bring a home-made clock to school?
Islamophobia: Earlier in the year, the mayor, Beth Van Duyne, accused a mosque of setting up sharia courts to bypass the law courts of Texas. Imams received threats and had to ask the police for protection. Texas, which is less than 1% Muslim, is so in fear of a Muslim takeover that it has passed anti-sharia laws.
Mohamed’s parents, who are Muslim and from Sudan, feel that the US has been good to them. But Mohamed and other young Muslim Americans, like his sister, feel otherwise, having experienced discrimination and disdain. In fact, just days before on Twitter Muslims shared stories of Islamophobia under the hashtag #AfterSeptember11.
Race: The US press calls him “brown”. Sudan is sometimes considered part of “sub-Saharan Africa”, sometimes not. It seems that most Sudanese Americans born in the US consider themselves Black.
The police say race has nothing to do with it, that they would have done the same to a White boy who brought a home-made clock to school. They will not admit to doing anything wrong.
The police did drop the charges, but the school stuck by its three-day suspension. Mohamed is changing schools.
Mohamed thanked all those who supported him on Twitter and Facebook. He said they made a difference.
– Abagond, 2015.
See also:
- racial profiling
- Islamophobia
- The three pillars of White American racism
- The term “sub-Saharan Africa”
- Sudan
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“The police say race has nothing to do with it, that they would have done the same to a White boy who brought a home-made clock to school.”
And yet, all these mass shootings…
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Sickening & shameful.
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@Pumpkin: Maybe potus wants to reward the kid’s initiative with the science stuff because as it is he has been severely punished for it and that’s a very bad message? Makes sense. If potus invited every person who was brutalized by police or mistreated in general for existing-while-black well it’d be a full time job to receive them 😦
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Where did these teachers and policemen get their vaunted bomb recognition skillz from… watching Bugs Bunny and Road Runner cartoons?
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Texas at it’s usual best…
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@Pumpkin
Actually in Nairobi, Mohamed would get lost in a crowd because people who look like him are so many here and they are black. My brother included.
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“They didn’t think he had a bomb.” byBSSanders
I said: it’s sad they thought that kid had a bomb.
She said: they didn’t think he had a bomb.
I said: yes, they thought he made a bomb and even called the police.
She said: They just wanted to humiliate a little Muslim boy. They didn’t think he had a bomb.
I said: Don’t be a conspiracy theorist. They might be a little prejudiced, but I’m sure they thought he had a bomb.
She said: OK.
But they didn’t evacuate the school, like you do when there’s a bomb.
They didn’t call a bomb squad – like you do when there’s a bomb.
They didn’t get as far away from him as possible, like you do when there’s a bomb.
Then they put him and the clock in an office: not like you do when there’s a bomb
Then they waited with him for the police to arrive, and then they put the clock in the same car as the police.
Then they took pictures of it.
I said: Damn…..They never thought he had a bomb.
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I’m glad this kid took his situation to public and wasn’t too embarrassed and humiliated to do so. Many people of color that face such racial harassment and discrimination at such a young age would never do so….. That’s including myself.
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@ villagewriter
“Actually in Nairobi, Mohamed would get lost in a crowd because people who look like him are so many here and they are black. My brother included.”
In Maputo (Mozambique) Mohamed would be seen either as Indian (descendant from people coming from South Asia) or Mulatto (mixed from Black and White).
In either case he would NOT be taken as Black.
Indians are very self-conscious as a group and almost never marry outside their own group. To take one of them as Black would be taken as an insult.
Mulattoes are also, to some extent, self-conscious and prefer to marry their children inside the group or, with a White spouse (“marry up”). But the worldwide American cultural reach with its own societal/racial classifications and also the fact that some middle to upper-class individuals do visit other countries (specially in the Anglo-sphere world) is prompting some Mulattoes to start to see themselves as extension or part of Black people.
Important to note that Portuguese speaking countries in Africa* have the highest percent of mixed race populations outside the Republic of South Africa.
*Mozambique, Angola, Sao Tome e Principe, Cape Verde and Guine-Bissau are the African Portuguese speaking countries. See Wikipedia for more information.
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Glenn, the point is that they (the police), never thought he had a REAL bomb, but you also have fake bombs (really if you are James-the-Non-Suicide-Bombing-Terrorist, you may start with a couple of real ones so Law Enforcement takes you as a serious threat, and then spice your bombs with harmless fake ones, which the police will be forced to treat as a real one, you know evacuate people, stop traffic, call in the bomb squad, think up a way how to deal with the press… so a whole lot of threat and nuisance for the police and the public,… Had one of those jokers target a supermarket chain in the city I live, a fake one was in the supermarket in the (association) football stadium, that one made the news BIG…
So, yes, the police is very much justified in taking a serious interest in harmless things looking like bombs, as they can be an important part of a terror campaign.
Now, being able to tell the difference between a clock and something looking like a bomb, while not being one seems to be slightly above their pay scale,…
Look I understand you want to show that you are tough, but in that case you should act this way:
http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/verdachte-persoon-uit-thalys-op-rotterdam-cs-gehaald~a4144826/
(don’t mind the text, look at the pictures), and that because a person with a colored skin, black curly hair and no ticket tried to take the train to Paris, by hiding on the toilet, you know the very train service to Paris from Amsterdam, which was attacked by that terrorist getting in the train in Brussels, who hid in the toilet to prepare his attack, before Spencer Stone and his comrades took him out. The reaction may seem a bit overdone, but is fully understandable.
That said I saw a recruitment flyer for people to play minor parts in a Danish play, no, not Hamlet, they asked for:
1) One Arabic looking woman to play an Afghan one (No, I don’t know why they did not want an Afghan looking one, the ways of the theater are mysterious indeed).
2) A woman aged over 70 in good health, nothing about looks mentioned, but the part was the demented mother of the Danish prime minister.
3) Eleven Afro-African men, to play a the less important members of adiplomatic mission from somewhere in Africa, first time I ever saw THAT combination, but the intent was clear, you may look like Ramses the Great, Paul Kruger or the King of Morocco, which are all nice and very African looks, but you do not have the looks we are looking for. (special qualification: has to be able to speak Dutch or English or French). I guess Ahmed Mohamed would probably have acceptable looks, except for being too young.
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I did not think Ahmed Mohamed looked Asian, the first picture I saw of him was another one, but I grant you that he looks very much that way in this picture
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And if the boy’s name was Timothy, the teacher would have said :” Well, done, Timothy. Wow! look at all the ingenuity, time and dedication. you put into it.You should be proud of yourself, son. Keep it up the good work.”
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Typos: dedication you put
keep up the good work.
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@Kiwi
Well he looks like a lot of different things but you guys know the concept of race is political. My brother is often mistaken for an Arab yet he is not. Kenya has so many different ethnic groups including Ethiopians, Somalians and other groups that tend to be lighter in skin color and mix a lot, you would lose your mind trying to categorize people here.
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@Munubantu
You are from Mozambique? You guys and Angolans need to be careful with those Portuguese guys moving to your countries; they have been indoctrinated with white supremacy ideology since they were young and they could start grabbing again and forming white only enclaves in your cities. Just saying. I love the Makonde tribe btw.
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That picture is little funny though-forgive me guys-but he looks like he is trying to process the depth of other people’s stupidity that got him in that unfortunate situation. I can tell his smart mind keeps hitting a wall as he tries to rationalize it.
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Yeah, this is in my the suburbs of my city and that type of behavior is typical of the people who live there they are bigots. Just like what happened in the suburb of McKinney, Texas. Just a bunch of bigoted white people especially in places like Irving. I can’t stand that part of town. Because Ahmed Mohamed is a person in brown skin and worships in the Muslim faith he is a suspect and that is why he was treated harshly. Why did they send ordinary cops instead of bomb sniffing dogs, detonation devices instead they interrupted a couple of bozos from their donut break. I remember they did this to a young black girl a couple of years ago. Kiera Wilmont was another impressive young lady who just had a love for science. htt://newsone.com/2459382/kiera-wilmont-nasa-engineer-scholarship/. And of course they used the old “It had nothing to do with race or religion card. If he was not named Ahmad and named Justin or Dylann and white he would have been slapped on the back and congratulated for his being innovative. When people are in black or brown skin and framed as “other” then they are suspect and labeled terrorist. The police and school district look like fools right about now and they are trying to do damage control.
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Dylan Roof is a terrorist but the mainstream media was very reluctant to label him a terrorist. When the Oklahoma bombings happened the dominant culture was so sure it was an Arab person and to their surprise it was a white Timothy McVeigh. This is a perfect example of Islamaphobia.
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The boy is even wearing a NASA teeshirt why didn’t they ask the engineering teacher if it was a bomb. So is this a teaching moment in racial profiling and an opportunity to discuss racism? Will white people want to participate in such an exercise?
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Well he gets to meet Mark Zuckerberg and the President he is a bright young man with a bright future. Good luck to him. I can just hear the Obama haters “Obama is an “Arab” and “President Obama loves mooslims and their bombs” #BigotsSoStupid.
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Looking at the expression his face the fear and humiliation he was put through. They are just a bunch of bigoted jerks.
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What a load of crap. The fact that the school never aplogized and maintained his supention says plenty about the character of the people who live their.
So Mirkwood you think something like this would never happen in a liberal place like Boston ?
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[…] page is deleted, the flood of articles about him will live on (such as the one you are reading or this one by my favorite blogger). Where is the fairness in […]
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@ Mirkwood.
So your solution for Islamophobia/racism is Socialism?
France is Socialist and the Islamophobia their burns down mosques ect.
All your solutions deflect away from the responsibility that white people take part in, whether we are talking about history or current events.
If this had happened in Boston it would have played out the same way.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
Racially profiling people of colour with mad technological skills is hardly some Southern or right-wing fringe thing. Wen Ho Lee was in New Mexico and was persecuted under Bill Clinton. Qian Xuesen was in California and deported under Eisenhower. I did posts on both of them. The links are in the See Also section.
As to Islamophobia, that is hardly limited to the South or the right either, as the protests against the “mosque” at Ground Zero in New York showed. In fact, Islamophobia is endemic in Hollywood and the mainstream press. It is as American as apple pie.
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Ya Mirkwood corporate fat cats smoking cigars manufactured America’s bigotry. It was forced on them like American fast food.
All you got to do is look at Trump and his popularity. He represents what America is. He’s not selling people on ideas rather he is speaking the words your average American wants to hear.
Political theater has become a reality TV show. Welcome to American democracy.
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Thank you Abagond. Islamophobia isn’t confined to the South or the right wingers. Liberal whites want to be able get a pass whenver they say or do anything racist toward POC and different religions,esp. Islam. The incident with Matt Damon is one. Bill Maher’s Muslim hatred is another Bill Maher had a very hateful attitude toward Islam. I’m glad so many people are standing with Ahmed Mohamed. However, there are bigots across the spectrum who hate his very guts. Anti Blackness and Islamophobia goes hand in hand with White supremacy and denial.
I stand with Ahmed Mohamed. May he go forward in life with his scientific brilliance and to heck with the bigots!
SB
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@ stephaniegirl @ Lord of Mirkwood
Oh right, Bill Maher is a big-time Islamophobe. He is neither Southern nor right-wing.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
That’s a joke, right? Some of the country’s biggest Islamophobic blowhard bigots are Irish Catholic:
Bill O’Reilly,
Sean Hannity,
Pat Buchanan.
It is people like them who fan the flames of Islamophobia, making events like this more likely.
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On some right-wing discussion sites, like FreeRepublic, this has been described as a deliberate action. A kid with that name and that look bringing his sciency thing to school? An attempt to trick the authorities into reacting! Evil!
They forget that Rosa Parks was also very deliberate. It wasn’t random. She was chosen to do it because of her extremely clean record, to show the evil of segregation. I do not know if this kid acted completely on his own or if it was provocation. But even if it was provocation… He. Was. Right. Provoking racists isn’t wrong.
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@Mirkwood
How do corporations begin racism and Islamophobia?
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The funny thing is that when you look at Communist and Socialist states, they are JUST AS RACIST as Capitalist states, if not more so! Please name the Communist utopia where here was equal race and gender representation politically and rights for all?
Check out the photos of all the Politburos that have existed around the world. How many minority faces do you see??? How many women?? How many of these states sanctioned homosexuality?
Did removing Capitalism remove prejudice?
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I get it that to an English teacher, Ahmed’s home-made clock might have looked like a bomb. The engineering teacher knew that it was not. What was the role of the engineering teacher? What engineering teacher worth his salt is not be able to distinguish the difference between a home-made bomb and a home-made clock? Clearly he identified it for what it was. If the engineering teaching called the bomb squad immediately and protocol promptly followed, we could deduce that the engineering teacher did not know much about his subject matter, and might be forgiven for acting on the side of caution because of his own educational shortcomings.
No bomb squad was called.They even took the “bomb” inside the principal’s office, and waited for the police to show up. They waited with the boy and the “bomb”.They then hand cuffed the underage BOY and then took the boy and the “bomb” in the squad car. They even took photographs.
There was no hesitation in treating the “brown boy” as a suspected terrorist, though. Every single player in this debacle is implicated in racial bigotry.
If they thought it was a bomb, why was the school with all the CHILDREN not evacuated immediately? What conversation did the engineering teacher have with the principal and the English schoolteacher? Even before the police arrived, the engineering teacher must have demonstrated to them that it was a homemade clock.
Any person had they thought it really was a bomb, squad or no, would have removed themselves (and those in their charge) immediately. And the waiting for the authorities would have seemed to be an eternity.
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The school, if it had any integrity at all should have immediately apologized to Ahmed and his parents for the pain and humiliation and fear that he had to endure. This might be a defining moment in young Ahmed’s life.
For my part, I wish this young man all the best in his life. Although it is not much to go on, I can intuit from his expression, that he is a thinking and sensitive person. Kudos to his parents, too.
I think the press characterizing him as “brown” ties in with the grand hegemonic white American imperialist narrative dominating their international politics in the derogation and demonization against Muslim people. The Afghanistan to Azerbaijan oil-pipeline, never fully and truthfully articulated to the American public. Neither is the full propaganda machine regarding the USA’s annual billions of aid to Israel( that could be given to African Americans and Indigenous Americans) and the imperialist ambitions in the ‘brown barbarians’ territory. One notices over the while, especially after September 11th 2001, the rise of Islamophobia. I have noticed this in the American and British reporting of the news. And the writings of white atheists such as Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens, putting the white male as the acme of civilization.
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I think It might be differentiated that ‘black’ in the States as those people who cannot pull themselves up with their own bootstraps and still complain about slavery and ‘black’ in Africa as those backward savages. ‘Brown’ when uttered by white people is interchangeable for Muslim, terrorist or bomber.
Or in South Africa, multi-ethnic people called ‘Coloured’. I am unable to articulate my reasons why I find it extremely offensive. Also, my own befuddlement to people describing themselves as ‘brown’.
I myself have referred to as’ brown’ and it just made my skin crawl. Call some-one ‘red’ and ‘yellow’ and see their reaction.
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^ been
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@Everett Pomare
LOM will blame the eclipse of the moon on corporations, but he forgets that white men run those corporations. Some could very well be Dems.
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“I think the reason the media calls him “brown” is because he doesn’t fit America’s stereotypical idea of what a Black male looks like. Obama is technically brown, too, but his features fit the stereotypical mold for Black men more than Ahmed Mohamed’s.”
@ Kiwi, Ahmed looks like any average “Black” boy in my neighborhood (and plenty others in the U.S. at large) to me, so I personally think that they just called him “Brown” because of his name/religious affiliation in this case. Also, his features are even stereotypically “Blacker” than President Obama’s if one is being technical-note his full lips, soft rounded-tip nose and contrast that to Obama’s pointier one, and thinner lips..Of course, the Prez’s hair is “thicker/coarser” but that is really the only difference in terms of so-called “Black features” (and it should go without saying that the African diaspora has every, single type of feature in the book and they had it first as well).
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P.S. The POTUS also has stereotypical, large “white (folk’s) ears, too. lols
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@pumpkin the reason why President Obama reached out to this young man is because he is into science and invention. One of the Presidents political agenda is education. What better way to spread teh message of education that to bring a young inventor that is a prime example of that.
if he bring the pool party kids what exactly are they going to bring to the White house. Are they going to teach the Obama girls how to twerk.
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Look at following link:
(http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/25/europe/uk-richard-dawkins-clock-boy-ahmed-mohamed/index.html)
Here we are: the renowned British scientist Richard Dawkins speaking nooosense…
He tries to defend a teacher who overreacted when a kid brought to the science class some “innovation”. The kid should have been praised, for God’s sake!
It never ceases to amaze me how apparently highly intelligent individuals sometimes come up with such stupidity!
In fact, such cases crop up once in a while, like a recurrent disease. One old example: transistor’s inventor William Shockley believed in Black intellectual inferiority, exactly like an old colonial farmer of two centuries ago! And he preached the castration of intellectually challenged persons…
Ah, I forgot: like James Watson believed too!
Amazing!
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@ munubantu
The 66 should be read as “at least 66”. It is based on press accounts which in turn are based almost completely on police accounts (except In a few cases).
So, for example:
– Walter Scott only made the list because his killing was caught on video.
– Sandra Bland did NOT make the list because the official story is that she died from suicide, which many people do not believe.
It is hard to say what the true number is, but it is AT LEAST 66.
I stuck to unarmed cases because the police are far more likely to be in the wrong in those cases.
In absolute numbers, sometimes more unarmed Whites are killed – but there are also way more Whites in the US. In proportional terms, unarmed Black and Native Americans are much more likely to be killed.
I have not done any surveys, but it seems to be pretty common for at least Black boys to be advised about the police. That probably goes all the way back to the early 1700s when slave patrols were set up.
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