Ahmed Mohamed, Clock-Making Teen, Transferring to Another School--Becca Brandt 4th Period

Last week, 14 year-old Ahmed Mohamed, from MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, was arrested at school for bringing a homemade clock to school that teachers thought was a bomb. He was taken into custody, questioned, arrested, and suspended for 3 days from school. Ahmed was interrogated by the police, unable to call his parents. They were eventually able to pick him up from the police station. Many people and organizations, such as Barack Obama, Mark Zuckerberg, and MIT, have reached out to Ahmed, praising him for his amazing work on his clock. President Obama asked him to bring it to the white house and MIT offered him a tour of the school, which he hopes to attend one day. Ahmed decided he would not be going back to his high school after what happened and is in the process of searching for a new school with his father. Ahmed was embarrassed and scared by the incident, however he now feels happy and lifted by all of the support he has gotten. The mayor of Irving, however, defends the school, saying that they did the right thing by taking him into custody.

I understand why the school took precautions, seeing as how the clock was a complex technological system and mistook it for a bomb, however I think they went way too far. He should not have been handcuffed and arrested. I definitely think part of the reason they were so harsh on Ahmed was because of his ethnicity. This just shows how little some aspects of our world have changed from the times of the colonization of America. Ahmed was treated poorly because of his skin color just like the Native Americans and Africans were treated poorly because of their skin color. What has changed is the different viewpoints. Ahmed received a ton of praise for his invention from people like Obama, however the school was also defended by people such as the mayor and Sarah Palin. In colonial times, mostly everyone treated the Native Americans and Africans poorly. They usually had no support and no one on their side. I think it is great how much praise Ahmed is getting and I hope he finds a school that appreciates his talent.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/17/us/texas-student-ahmed-muslim-clock-bomb/index.html