Support for Racially Profiled Student Ahmed Mohamed Encourages Irving Police to Come to Their Senses

We’ve been following the story of Texas high school student, Ahmed Mohamed, who was arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school, and we – along with many prominent folks – stand with Ahmed.

It wasn’t just prominent folks, either. Ordinary citizens, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, are showing support for Ahmed – as well as for the ideals he stands for: ingenuity, creativity, and a love of STEM.

Well, at the very least, Irving, TX police came to their senses and are not pressing charges against the student. According to the Dallas Morning News, Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd said:

The follow-up investigation revealed the device apparently was a homemade experiment, and there’s no evidence to support the perception he intended to create alarm.

Oh, great. That required putting a child in handcuffs. Because as we know, all students show the bombs they bring to school to their engineering teachers first before their English teachers report them.  And of course, this decision by the Irving police was despite the fact that Ahmed’s clock was:

[C]ertainly suspicious in nature. The student showed the device to a teacher, who was concerned that it was possibly the infrastructure for a bomb.

And that’s what this is all about. As I’ve written about before – it all comes down to that one scared white person who makes a phone call or reports something based on bias. This isn’t about the Irving police. This isn’t even about the Irving school district. This is about one teacher’s bias and ignorance causing a firestorm in the life of a child. Thankfully, much of the world seems ready to embrace this child, and I have a feeling that he’ll have loads of opportunities when he leaves school. But he shouldn’t have had to deal with this in the first place.

(via Dallas Morning News)

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Teresa Jusino

Teresa Jusino (she/her) is a native New Yorker and a proud Puerto Rican, Jewish, bisexual woman with ADHD. She's been writing professionally since 2010 and was a former TMS assistant editor from 2015-18. Now, she's back as a contributing writer. When not writing about pop culture, she's writing screenplays and is the creator of your future favorite genre show. Teresa lives in L.A. with her brilliant wife. Her other great loves include: Star Trek, The Last of Us, anything by Brian K. Vaughan, and her Level 5 android Paladin named Lal.

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