The Case of the Irving Islamaphobes

So there was an incident at an Irving Texas high school the other day. Apparently it ended up being much ado about nothing. It seems a 14-year-old boy built a clock from scratch and brought it to school to impress his teachers.

 

Evidently, Ahmed Mohammed, who is a bit of electronics whiz, built the digital clock from parts he bought and had lying around. He then brought the clock into school and showed one of his teachers who thought it was pretty cool. The next teacher he showed, however impressed, was also a bit alarmed.

 

See, the “clock” didn’t look like any clock you, I, or the teacher had ever seen. In fact, the “clock” looked more like a bomb than a clock. That’s when things got a little dicey.

 

Evidently, the teacher confiscated the “clock” and someone called the police, who showed up, handcuffed the kid, and took him to a room inside the school to be interrogated.

 

The police told him that he was being detained and questioned over what they described as a “hoax bomb.” Shortly thereafter the cries of racism and Islamophobia began.

 

One of his older sisters began a Twitter campaign  http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150916-handcuffing-over-homemade-clock-turns-irving-teen-into-social-media-sensation-in-no-time.eceentitled “#IStandWithAhmed.” It has picked up over 500,000 mentions and re-tweets. If I were to guess, I’d say virtually none of these twitter followers have any clue about what happened, and are just typical liberal lemmings looking for the latest cause.

 

Now, because the boy is Muslim, naturally the Council on American Relations (CAIR) had to inject itself into the situation. Ibrahim Hooper, the spokesman for CAIR, told Al Jazeera that it was obvious the school boy’s religion had played a role in his arrest. “We believe the arrest would not have occurred if the student had not been Muslim… the school’s reaction and that of the police stems from the fact that he is a Muslim,” Hooper said. “It is a symptom of growing Islamophobia that a 14-year-old was handcuffed and dragged away for doing a science project.”

 

I’m not making a judgment one way or the other – I simply don’t have enough to do so – but am always alarmed by anything CAIR is involved with. Everyone knows (or should) CAIR is an apologist and front organization for the Muslim Brotherhood. I find it odd, that a “normal American family” would accept the help from the radicals at CAIR.

 

Ahmed then heard from Mark Zuckerberg, who told him he could visit Facebook anytime. Not to be outdone, our beloved president, Barack Hussein Obama tweeted: “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.”

 

Isn’t that nice. I think Kate Steinle’s family is still waiting for their invitation.

 

Ahmed then received an invitation to appear on MSNBC,   http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/all-in-exclusive-with-ahmed-mohamed-526948931844 where he and a CAIR attorney sat down for a satellite interview. As I watched it, I thought, this was all a bit odd.

 

Ahmed said during the interview, that he didn’t think he would have any support, because he was a “Muslim boy.” He said, “I thought I was going to be a victim of injustice.” The weird thing was that as the attorney spoke, Ahmed just sat quietly and stared forward. But when he spoke, he kept constantly glancing off camera to his left, as if there was somebody off-camera coaching him. And 14-year-old boys don’t say “injustice.” This I know.

 

The MSNBC host said: “So, you bought the parts and put it together in your room?” Ahmed: “Yes.” The boy then added that, “I wanted to show my teachers what I made to impress them by something simple.”

 

So it sounds as if he just built the “clock” to take to school, yet his father, during a press conference said: “He wakes up with it most mornings.”

 

And at the start of the family press conference the young man began by saying, “As-salam alaykum,” and then burst into a grin.

 

This whole situation seems rather odd to me. Yes, I think the school and the police may have overreacted, but it seems, due to insane zero-tolerance policies, it’s no more than suspending a kid for merely drawing a gun or making one out of a Pop Tart. 

But this clock did indeed look more like a bomb than any clock. If this were anyone but a Muslim kid, the same people would be praising the school for erring on the side of caution and safety. Instead these cautious individuals will be vilified as Islamaphobes and the school will have its butt sued off.

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