http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/09/18/dad-ahmed-mohamed-wont-returning-public-high-school/72380158/
Ok folks, have we completely lost our minds and become so paranoid in this country? Have we forgotten the words of Benjamin Franklin? Anyone who has seen a Roadrunner cartoon knows the clock has to be connected to some kind of explosive package for it to be a bomb. I can understand the teacher being spooked, but you would think the men in uniform and the bomb squad would react a bit more professional. The big question so many ask is whether the reaction would have been the same had the kid been white. All that said, they pretty much made this kid a superstar as he's getting invitations from FaceBook to Nasa to the White House and more.
While the media and for that matter his parents are looking to frame what happened through the lens of of islamophobia, this is nothing more than an example, of which there are many, of the current zero tolerance policy that pervades the American school system. As Rickster pointed out with his link to one example, there are many more. Recently some may have read about a grade school boy who who kissed a girl on a dare and was charged with assault. Or perhaps the story of a boy who took his sandwich, shaped it into the shape of a gun, pointed it and was severely dealt with. Then last year there was a Caucasian HS student, Alex Stone, in SC, who wrote a fictional story about shooting a dinosaur. He was arrested and suspended.
While the above examples garnered a certain degree of national attention, none of them had people bringing sandwiches or copies of Jurassic Park to the floors of Congress. Steven Spielberg didn't call Alex Stone and say how'd you like to spend a day on the set?
So, would a white kid have been treated differently? Not in any significant way. Zero Tolerance Policies seem to be quite heavy handed and while the student in question did not relish being handcuffed, this seems to be SOP. If people don't like what happened here, then don't like it wherever and whenever it happens.
Now, as to the clock kid, as I understand it, he first showed it to his electronics/science teacher who cautioned against him displaying it to other teachers. For those who don't know, this is a picture of his clock.
It does not look anything like these clocks.
Now, the President has invited him to the White House, Hillary reached out to him, Zuckerberg said come on down, and Keith Ellison, the U.S. Congressman from MN walked around with a clock. But I ask you, were I or you to walk in or attempt to do so with a clock like in the first picture through an airport, a WH tour, visit Congress, or to Facebook headquarters, might not we expect to get a similar reaction regardless of our color or personal beliefs?
Now while it has been pointed out that there was no explosive device visually seen, from the POV of Zero Tolerance, one could have been placed elsewhere. And his parents, who I would assume to be proactive in their son's education, ought they have not said to him, you know, it's not a good idea to bring something like that to school and walk around with it. As it was, it went off in English class and really, should an English teacher be expected to know its full function? And for him, who is being painted as a wunderkind, why not just leave it with your science teacher and for that matter, if not, why not disable the alarm feature or just disconnect the power source? I question whether it is accurate to portray him as a budding electronics talent because looking at his clock, this seems to have been cobbled together from pre-made parts like you'd find at eBay.
So now he'll look to go to meet the POTUS. Obama reacted quickly instead of waiting a month or so to react to the three Americans who prevented tragedy on the French train. Or who has not even acknowledged the shooting of Kate Steidle by an illegal 'dreamer' in SF. I guess while Travon Martin could have been his son, Kate could not have been his daughter.
