Wrongly accused Texas kid on the left goes to the White House; wrongly accused Texas kid on the right goes to jail. Explain.
Let us stipulate that Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year-old Texas high school student who was the latest victim of public school cruelty, police incompetence, child abuse, and school-attack hysteria, resulting in an arrest for the Kafka crime of making a “hoax bomb”—that is, a thing that isn’t a bomb and the maker didn’t say was a bomb, but some idiot teacher thought looked like a bomb, and thus assuming it must have been intended to make idiot teachers think it was a bomb even though even the idiot teachers knew it wasn’t— deserves every kindness and compensatory trip, photo op, meeting and accolade imaginable as a societal apology for being treated like a mad bomber by unethical adults no more qualified to teach the young than they are to fly to Gibralta using their arms as wings.
BUT…
…So do all the other teens (and younger) who have been treated this badly or worse in recent years—the kids punished for gun-shaped pizza and pastries….or the students who were punished after taking weapons away from fellow students and turning them over to teachers, only to find that they were the caught in the Catch 22 of “no tolerance” madness, seeded in part by the fear-mongering inflicted on our society by President Obama and his political allies.
Like Ahmed, Justin Carter particularly warranted high-level official mea culpas—remember him? He was another Texas teen who languished in jail for months because he made a joke on Facebook about school shootings. Nobody lifted a finger to help him, because, you see, he wasn’t one of the favored minorities to this administration. Don’t you dare argue that the distinction is that Justin made his “terroristic” comments in the context of a computer game, while Ahmed’s home-made clock was proof of special talents. Typical kids deserve fair treatment as much as budding geniuses.
Don’t
You
Dare.
In a 2013 post titled, If Only Justin Carter Were Black…Or Muslim…, I wrote
If Justin Carter were black or Muslim….
- …maybe the news media would take an interest in a Texas teenager being imprisoned and charged with a terrorist threat for an obvious joke on Facebook;
- …maybe progressive and civil rights organizations would question whether his prosecution was the result of an abuse of power by prosecutors, and fearful paranoia by the his community;
- …maybe pundit and commentator accusations of official bias against his race or religion would result in authorities questioning the wisdom of their actions and the cruelty of Justin’s persecution;
- …maybe professional activists and race-hucksters would use their influence to focus attention on his plight, the miscarriage of justice, and its dangerous implications for the rest of us;
- …maybe the ACLU would deem his case worthy of its intervention and support;
- ...maybe Al Sharpton would organize demonstrations protesting law enforcement ruining the life of an innocent young man because he was insufficient sensitive to irrational public fearfulness, instead of organizing protests against a jury’s just and unimpeachable acquittal of a defendant based on inadequate evidence to convict.
- …maybe the President of the United States would feel that his case was worthy of a lecture to the nation about the importance of free speech, and why fear of guns, violence and terrorism shouldn’t turn the U.S. into a censorious police state.
But unfortunately for Justin Carter and the First Amendment, he isn’t black or Muslim, so the serious criminal charges against him for daring to express himself remain, the news media has been silent on the case for more than a week, the ACLU ignores him, the President’s attentions and priorities remain elsewhere, and most of the public has never heard of him, or doesn’t give a damn.
Ah, but Ahmed is dark-skinned, and better yet, Muslim, so he is worthy of national attention. And he is worthy, of course, but so were the others. Thus this is, yet again, a double-standard nourished by the President, and a divisive one.
I wish I was correct every day as I was when I wrote that post.
Well, maybe I don’t.
Selective attention sends clear messages about biases and priorities. The message sent by the over-deification of one mistreated American teen while so many others have been treated just as unjustly with no official condemnation of their tormenters or support for them whatsoever is an ugly one. It is a message, however, we have been getting for seven long years.
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Pointer: Several of you. Thanks.
Ethics Alarms 
I’ve been waiting for you to post this. I agree with everything. It’s so obvious that it makes me question if it isn’t a trial baloon floated by extreme Islam to see how much they can get away with. If I saw an object like that “clock” brought to school by a student I would report it. We’re told “If you see something say something.” But, really, would I attempt to say something after this. Obama has poisoned the well. We can no longer hold black and arab looking people to the same standard without risking our jobs, our lives or our reputation. It’s getting close with women as well.
Creating special untouchable groups with liberal prejudices is functionally no different from the hate crimes of history that I no longer dare name.
You’d report it even if you didn’t think it was a bomb? Because the teachers didn’t report it as a bomb, apparently, and the cops didn’t think it was. I once brought one of these to high school, and nobody cared…
I’d report it if I thought it was a bomb. If I knew it was a clock Of course I wouldn’t report it.
“Because the teachers didn’t report it as a bomb”
I thought at least one teacher was concerned about what it could have been…and I won’t hold that against the teacher at all or his/her desire to investigate further. Everything that occurred after the teacher’s concern is ludicrous however, as the follow-on “investigation” that should have been cursory was blown way out of proportion.
There was no need for police intervention let alone arrest. Based on young Ahmed’s apparently immaculate academic and behavioral record, this was a teaching moment– “Dear Ahmed, excellent work on electrical assembly! Let’s talk aesthetics now.”
But, naturally, this isn’t occurring in a vacuum. Irving has an increasingly active Muslim population – one that is gradually, though slightly, less inclined to assimilation and more inclined to an insular more Islamic community (fortunately nowhere near Dearborn levels yet). They’ve even gone so far as to agitate for their own civil courts run in an Islamic fashion…though it was stopped, naturally. The tribunal established still functions as long as it’s mediation doesn’t conflict with the established laws of the land.
Needless to say, some in Irving are slightly on edge.
Was little Ahmed profiled as many are claiming?
Maybe.
Maybe little Ahmed was profiling his environment, too.
There was no bomb alert, no alarm, nobody was told to leave the building, etc.
I don’t think he was profiled, but who can tell? I do know that the self-righteous fool I just heard on TV ranting on that this would never have happened to a white child…well, she needs to meet Justin.
“Don’t You Dare!” I like it.
Classic Animal Farm. All animals are equal, but some more so than others.
Apparrently Justin Carter is still awaiting trial, at least as of this past July.
https://www.change.org/p/release-my-son-justin-carter-being-prosecuted-for-a-facebook-comment/u/11321755
I wasn’t able to find any more current than that.
Carter needs a posse to spring him from jail – and a couple of people kidnapped and “missing” who have enabled his persecution to drag on.
I wonder if we could get Ahmed as the tech guy.
I see the news media falling over themselves trying to find when white students did the same thing and rewarded.
How about when they weren’t. My favorite one is when a principal called the bomb squad for a science fair project because he said it was a ‘realistic’ atomic bomb. It was a poster board poster. It wasn’t even a 3-D model, but the principal was afraid it might destroy the city. I couldn’t find the article, but here are some others.
A San Diego vice-principal called the bomb squad on an 11-year old’s motion detector.
http://boingboing.net/2010/01/16/candy-ass-vice-princ.html
A bomb squad blew up an “electromagnetic fishing pole” project in Pennsylvania .
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/9929108/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/bomb-squad-blows-science-project/#.Vfx8demI0ok
In Fla., the bomb squad was called to investigate a gps system.
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2000-02-02/news/0002020178_1_bomb-squad-cloud-science
NYC evacuated a school because of a depth gauge.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/brooklyn-high-school-evacuated-old-science-experiment-mistaken-bomb-article-1.1350499
The bomb squad blew up an ‘egg drop’ experiment.
The bomb squad blew up another one in Portland.
http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/bomb-squad-detonates-science-project-1016042.php
Police called to investigate the classic ‘glitter tornado bottle’.
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1991-11-08/news/9102150539_1_bomb-squad-acid-bomb-remote-controlled-robot
They evacuated the kid’s house and searched it with a robot, shutting down the street for hours on this one.
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/bomb-making-materials-found-inside-hapeville-home-/nmtrm/
NJ Train station evacuated in this one.
http://www.nj.com/somerset/index.ssf/2014/01/science_project_mistaken_for_a_bomb_causes_evacuation_of_gladstone_train_station.html
In Atlanta, they blew up a pinhole camera. The same project caused a second shutdown as well.
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/georgia-state-student-project-closed-downtown-conn/nj3xc/
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/second-gsu-art-project-camera-forces-evacuations-i/nj4Sk/
Another bomb squad called for a drink-mixer.
http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2010/11/23/bomb-squad-called-to-arden-fair-over-college-project/
Comment of the Day. I’ll try to get it up tonight.
And here’s the thing…to be a bomb, there should be an explosive…you know, something to go ‘BOOM’.
1) Little Ahmed would never get that past security *ANYWHERE*- hell, he wouldn’t even get it into the White House for his little chummy meeting with the President if we didn’t already discover it wasn’t a bomb.
2) Even several MILITARY people trained in identifying explosives admit they would second guess Ahmed’s clock.
I don’t see any issues whatsoever with concern for what he brought to school. The issues arise in the handling of those concerns afterwards. Interestingly enough, it would seem there is good grounds now to think Ahmed wasn’t exactly Mr. Compliant when concerned teachers who knew he was a good kid and knew he didn’t do anything wrong still understood the optics of his “project” and asked him to keep it subdued.
” Interestingly enough, it would seem there is good grounds now to think Ahmed wasn’t exactly Mr. Compliant when concerned teachers who knew he was a good kid and knew he didn’t do anything wrong still understood the optics of his “project” and asked him to keep it subdued”
If that’s true, it completely re-frames this whole thing, in terms of his motives. Seems more like a stunt than anything (“I’m being profiled!”)
Here’s the problems I see:
1) We seem to be over-reacting to most everything these days. Worse we are tempering our over-reaction by over-reacting to the political correctness aspect of the situation.
2) As with the Airport Gestapo who randomly check people (especially people who, on the face of it are not terrorists) UNTIL a young, Arab, probably Muslim man approaches and they wave him through, reverse profiling has gotten out of hand.
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It would seem to me that muslims not understanding a tendency on the part of Westerners to be a bit distrustful is a bad strategy. I’m the sort of person who would prefer to think the best of people, and I’d like to think most people are. Reacting with outrage when people are somewhat hesitant to ignore the fact that they belong to a “religion” (sorry, it has all the markings of a death cult) which has a not-insignificant proportion of its members blowing themselves up, however, can only generate more distrust. I’m guessing it takes a tremendous amount of zeal to blow one’s self up. That, in and of itself, sets islam apart by a wide margin.
Is that really difficult to fathom?
“What’s with these infidels? What’s not to like about exploding people?”
Someone needs to teach them a better way to build fireworks.
Or, a more appropriate use for a hunting/fishing vest.
Don’t forget the New Mexico school that called in the bomb squad because a kid brought an oversized burrito to school for his Spanish class.
Key here is that none of the students was called to the White House so that Obama could say the kid looked like he could be his own son.
Careful, this might be an instance of the Chineese robber fallacy… http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/16/cardiologists-and-chinese-robbers/ for a great example and explanation.
Rethought this shortly after i wrote it. Michael R. wasn’t suggesting any sort of broad pattern based on the anecdotes, just disproving the the pattern being established by the media via counterexamples. I had just read that other post today so it was on my mind.
The outrage on my end more has to do with the stupidity of teachers. They should know better.
Your outrage is well-placed.
Not just teachers, but administrators as well. I would repeat my earlier comment. In order to be a bomb, there must be something attached to it to go ‘Boom’. A bunch of circuit boards wired together will not generally go ‘Boom’.
Yep, even I know that.
Well, to be fair, the kid on the left is more photogenic. These things matter when you’re the President, after all.