Ahmed Mohammed, a teen from Irving, Texas was sent to jail early last week, after his English teacher thought what he had brought to school was a hoax bomb. Mohammed had came to school eager to impress his teachers with this homemade clock, but instead was punished and left school in handcuffs.
When news got out about this incident, that fact that Mohammed is Muslim, was the reason people believed he was stereotyped into being a terrorist that would create a bomb. Mohammed, however stated numerous times to police and his teachers that, his creation was in fact, just a clock, but they refused to acknowledge. After clearly stating that it was a clock, one officer asked ” So you tried to make a bomb?” The police wouldn’t even let the teen phone call his father to tell him what happened, and the school didn’t notify the father of the incident, until after he had already been arrested.
All over social media , celebrities and even the President of the United States himself, acknowledged Ahmed and showed support. Obama’s tweet to Mohamed read “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.”
Recently, Microsoft, sent the teen many new gadgets, in showing him support as well.
Opinion: This seems to be another case of stereotyping others based on their race or religion. The fact that the school, didn’t even call the father first before sending his son off to jail, or the police officers basically expecting the creation to be a bomb, even before speaking with the teen and arresting him before testing the item , shows unfairness to the teen and represents what could be happening all around this country. When people have presumptions of other people, which lead them to build a negative view of them. Yes, we as people can have our insights and gut feelings about people, but we need to make sure our assumptions aren’t based on what a persons made by labeled as, or by generalizing them with. If we want to make educated assumptions on people, they should be analyzed individually, by their repeated behaviors otherwise known as their character.