The story of Ahmed Mohamed and a clock

[Mr Bean]

There has been an image of a "real suitcase bomb" floating around to justify the reaction. Anyone know what exactly it is (see below)? It looks like some kind of network testing equipment.

Because the image is really big:

http://www.trunews.com/wp-content/uploa ... itcase.jpg

It looks kinda of complicated to be a network tester and WAY to complicated to be a suitecase bomb. The Nobell tag on the suitecase makes me thing Windows 95 era network router configuration loader but that's before my time so I don't know.

*Edit found something from 2011 this website here which features a story about Malta and suitcases and the image is tagged Honeywell demo kit... looking further.

*Edit 2
If I'm reading the results right this is a mid 90s Honeywell home Security mobile demo kit

[Sgt_Artyom]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFMx8uc_y64

Got a good laugh out of this.

[Napoleon the Clown]

I agree that this is zero tolerance bullshit run amok, but you can't reasonably deny that it's also anti- Islamic cowardice.

This is my stance on it, as well. There probably would have been some drama regardless since it was a suitcase with a bunch of wires in it, but if he were a white kid, then once it was established to just be a homemade clock then that would have been the end of it.

I can't find it in me to fault a teacher for reacting to a possible bomb threat, though nothing in the description sounds particularly bomb-like and I'd expect an engineering teacher to know better.

Unless the reporting of this has been incredibly off the mark, the engineering teacher is not the problem here. According to the article in the OP, it was his English teacher who claimed it was a bomb. From what I've read, the engineering teacher complimented Ahmed on it, but recommended that he not bring it out in front of the other teachers (possibly because he realized that someone would overreact and this would happen).

It wasn't even a suitcase. It was a pencil box. Smaller that those old-timey lunch boxes that are collector's items now.

The reaction was, 100% and completely, because the kid's name is "Muslim." If his name had been generically American nobody would have blinked. They wouldn't think "This kid's a Muslim!" because to them being named "Ahmed" automatically makes you Muslim. Being named Barack makes you automatically Muslim. They may think Islam is a bad religion, but they also think that everyone with a name that has Arabic origins must be a Muslim. It's both hatred of a religion and racism.

[Grumman]

The reaction was, 100% and completely, because the kid's name is "Muslim." If his name had been generically American nobody would have blinked.

Yep, because when I hear "Star Simpson," I think "Muslim!" Or maybe you're full of it.

[Napoleon the Clown]

The reaction was, 100% and completely, because the kid's name is "Muslim." If his name had been generically American nobody would have blinked.

Yep, because when I hear "Star Simpson," I think "Muslim!" Or maybe you're full of it.

Or maybe Star Simpson was at an airport with Play-Dough and refused to explain what the fuck was up with her shirt. Not at school repeatedly saying that it was a clock. And then they never fucking evacuated the school. Security at airports is insanely paranoid. Comparing an airport with a fucking school is intentionally duplicitous. Misleading. It's lying. The situations aren't comparable.

So maybe I'm not full of it. A kid built a fucking clock in a pencil case. They didn't evacuate the school. If they really thought it was a bomb, they would have evacuated the school and had the bomb disposal people deal with it. That's not how they handled it. They knew it wasn't a bomb. They new it was harmless. They decided to pretend they thought he wanted to scare people with it. It was motivated by his name and the color of his skin. He was honest with them, he did not dodge questions. He did not leave it unattended anywhere. He didn't run around in an airport with it. He had it on his person the entire time at school. It. Was. Bigotry.

[Flagg]

I agree that this is zero tolerance bullshit run amok, but you can't reasonably deny that it's also anti- Islamic cowardice.

This is my stance on it, as well. There probably would have been some drama regardless since it was a suitcase with a bunch of wires in it, but if he were a white kid, then once it was established to just be a homemade clock then that would have been the end of it.

I can't find it in me to fault a teacher for reacting to a possible bomb threat, though nothing in the description sounds particularly bomb-like and I'd expect an engineering teacher to know better.

Unless the reporting of this has been incredibly off the mark, the engineering teacher is not the problem here. According to the article in the OP, it was his English teacher who claimed it was a bomb. From what I've read, the engineering teacher complimented Ahmed on it, but recommended that he not bring it out in front of the other teachers (possibly because he realized that someone would overreact and this would happen).

It wasn't even a suitcase. It was a pencil box. Smaller that those old-timey lunch boxes that are collector's items now.

The reaction was, 100% and completely, because the kid's name is "Muslim." If his name had been generically American nobody would have blinked. They wouldn't think "This kid's a Muslim!" because to them being named "Ahmed" automatically makes you Muslim. Being named Barack makes you automatically Muslim. They may think Islam is a bad religion, but they also think that everyone with a name that has Arabic origins must be a Muslim. It's both hatred of a religion and racism.

Oh yeah. Really, the simple fact that there was no bomb squad or evacuation tells me that without a shadow of a doubt they knew it wasn't a bomb but decided the kid was pulling some kind of hoax and they wanted to "teach the raghead a lesson". And since its Texas, where empathy, tolerance, and rationality go to die, the poor kid's lucky he wasn't shot.

[Flagg]

I'm just going to say it, because it's the goddamned motherfucking truth, plain as day. The officials that put Ahmed through this and every single last motherfucker defending or apologizing for them (Grumman) are racist pieces of shit who have no place in polite society and aren't fit to perform any action or make any decisions that don't involve sweeping floors and cleaning toilets. If it weren't based completely on racism, then the officials would've followed standard operating procedure and evacuated the school and the bomb squad would have blown up the harmless homemade clock. And I stand by that.

[Grumman]

I am not defending or apologising for these idiots, Flagg. I am trying to get it through your thick skulls that treating Ahmed like a white kid does not solve the problem, because treating him like a white kid still means treating him like shit. I want the problem to be fixed, and the idea that you could just write this off as racism and punish the individuals involved accordingly instead of attacking the mindset that is responsible for Ahmed's mistreatment is exactly the sort of ass-covering non-solution that would appeal to these moral cowards.

[Borgholio]

the idea that you could just write this off as racism and punish the individuals involved accordingly instead of attacking the mindset that is responsible for Ahmed's mistreatment

Isn't racism EXACTLY the mindset that is responsible for the mistreatment?

[Civil War Man]

While I don't deny that their could be racism in this, I can't help but feel that you are equating prejudice against Islam with racism and that that isn't accurate. This is not an attempt to excuse prejudice against Muslims, which I find intellectually and morally contemptible. Its simply a distinction that seems important because race and religion are objectively not the same thing, and sometimes I see them being treated as if they are. An equation I actually find racist, as it insinuates that our beliefs are a racial characteristic, something inherent to a race rather than something that can vary and change from one individual to another.

Edit: And yes, I do know that prejudice against Muslims and racism can overlap. But the two are fundamentally distinct, so, nitpicky as it may seem, I insist on treating them as such.

Honestly, Islamophobia, at least in the US, is more about race than it is about religion. When the bigots rail against Muslims, they are not thinking about Indonesians or Bosnians, but specifically people who are of Middle Eastern and African ethnicity.

[Grumman]

the idea that you could just write this off as racism and punish the individuals involved accordingly instead of attacking the mindset that is responsible for Ahmed's mistreatment

Isn't racism EXACTLY the mindset that is responsible for the mistreatment?

If it was racism, why does it occur regardless of race? It's not just black kids who are suspended or expelled because the school does not care that your drugs are life saving medicine, or that your gun is a Pop Tart, or that you shaved your head in solidarity with someone undergoing chemotherapy. The problem as I see it is an unwillingness to show leadership and refuse to enforce a rule that is clearly unjust, and that unwillingness is not simply because it's a black kid you'd let off the hook.

[aerius]

Did some digging around on the 'net and found this picture of the clock
http://blogs.artvoice.com/techvoice/wp- ... clock1.jpg

Having taken apart my share of electronics over the years, I can say that this looks like a 30-40 year old alarm clock that was taken apart and reassembled inside the case. Note the 9V battery connection and exposed ungrounded transformer, at worst, that thing might electrocute someone. This thing won't even turn on unless it's plugged in, which would be pretty damn stupid if the intent is to make an actual bomb.

[The Romulan Republic]

While I don't deny that their could be racism in this, I can't help but feel that you are equating prejudice against Islam with racism and that that isn't accurate. This is not an attempt to excuse prejudice against Muslims, which I find intellectually and morally contemptible. Its simply a distinction that seems important because race and religion are objectively not the same thing, and sometimes I see them being treated as if they are. An equation I actually find racist, as it insinuates that our beliefs are a racial characteristic, something inherent to a race rather than something that can vary and change from one individual to another.

Edit: And yes, I do know that prejudice against Muslims and racism can overlap. But the two are fundamentally distinct, so, nitpicky as it may seem, I insist on treating them as such.

Honestly, Islamophobia, at least in the US, is more about race than it is about religion. When the bigots rail against Muslims, they are not thinking about Indonesians or Bosnians, but specifically people who are of Middle Eastern and African ethnicity.

Like I said, I recognize that racism and Islamophobia can overlap. I can't say which is more prevalent, though going by instinct and vague information, you may very well be right. I certainly have no inclination to argue the point.

I just feel the distinction between the two is important to make despite that, precisely because so many people (Islamophobic racist assholes included) conflate the two.

Edit: I'll also acknowledge that a parallel between them is not entirely invalid, as both involve stereotyping and condemning millions of people based on a single aspect of who they are (and as such, should be condemned). However, similar does not mean identical, and linguistic precision is an underrated quality, particularly when dealing with complex and sensitive topics such as this.

[Borgholio]

If it was racism, why does it occur regardless of race? It's not just black kids who are suspended or expelled because the school does not care that your drugs are life saving medicine, or that your gun is a Pop Tart, or that you shaved your head in solidarity with someone undergoing chemotherapy. The problem as I see it is an unwillingness to show leadership and refuse to enforce a rule that is clearly unjust, and that unwillingness is not simply because it's a black kid you'd let off the hook.

I was referring to this case specifically.

[Alkaloid]

Sums it up, really.

[Channel72]

Honestly, Islamophobia, at least in the US, is more about race than it is about religion. When the bigots rail against Muslims, they are not thinking about Indonesians or Bosnians, but specifically people who are of Middle Eastern and African ethnicity.

Eh... I don't know, I think you're overanalyzing this. The average American provincial idiot doesn't even know that Bosnia has Muslims ... (or that Bosnia exists, for that matter). There's little or no discernment between a Muslim from Jakarta, a Muslim from Islamabad, a Muslim from Tehran, a Muslim from Riyadh - they're all just foreign and dark-skinned, and smell different, and have weird food and weird names, and they do weird religious things, but not the good kind of Jesus-related religious things (except when they acknowledge Jesus as a legitimate prophet, but still they're not doing it right ...)

Clearly, all Muslims are generated by Satan inside a giant falafel factory in the desert somewhere (or possibly on the Klingon homeworld) where they are taught how to ride camels, pray in a weird language, haggle over the price of golden trinkets, and create clock bombs designed to blow up schools and churches where white wholesome people congregate.

[Flagg]

I am not defending or apologising for these idiots, Flagg. I am trying to get it through your thick skulls that treating Ahmed like a white kid does not solve the problem, because treating him like a white kid still means treating him like shit. I want the problem to be fixed, and the idea that you could just write this off as racism and punish the individuals involved accordingly instead of attacking the mindset that is responsible for Ahmed's mistreatment is exactly the sort of ass-covering non-solution that would appeal to these moral cowards.

It is racism you fucknugget. If his name were John Smith and he had blue eyes and a lily white complexion no one would have said anything (or if they did it would have involved a pat on the back and extra-credit), let alone suspended him for doing something that only a kid with Mohammed's name and complexion would get in any sort of trouble for, which is building a homemade clock. If it wasn't racism, they'd have followed actual protocol and evacuated the school and had the bomb squad come and dispose of the device. The fact that they had no real concerns about the clock, but suspended him and had him arrested anyway is the problem, and the words that sum up that problem is "racist assholery". That you keep insisting this isn't racism makes you stupid and/or a racist.

You can't lump this in with zero tolerance shit, unless you've huffed so much paint that your jellified chunky-salsa brain actually thinks anyone without a Middle Eastern heritage and/or Muslim-sounding name would have even gotten a second look in a negative way for what is essentially a science project.

[Channel72]

^ to add to that, the really ironic thing is that it's actually statistically more likely that a kid with "a lily white complexion" will try to blow up a school, or at least, start shooting people, than someone named Mohammed.

[Ahriman238]

Well, now no less an authority than Sarah Palin has spoken on the subject. Ahmed was just "asking for it" by being an "obstinate answerer." HuffPo.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) said on Saturday that arresting and suspending Ahmed Mohamed, the ninth grader who brought a homemade clock to school , was totally reasonable.

Palin called initial media reports of Mohamed's arrest "fishy" and said that school officials were totally justified in thinking that his clock, made out of a pencil box, was a bomb.

"Yep, believing that's a clock in a school pencil box is like believing Barack Obama is ruling over the most transparent administration in history," she wrote in a Facebook post in which she shared pictures of her kids' pencil boxes. "Right. That's a clock, and I'm the Queen of England."

Palin also compared the incident to others in which students were suspended and said that Mohamed was obviously an "obstinate-answering student."

"Friends, consider the kids disciplined and/or kicked out of school for bringing squirt guns to school or taking bites out of a pop tart until it resembled (to some politically correct yahoo) a gun. Or the student out deer hunting with his dad early one morning who forgot he had a box of ammo in his truck when he parked in the school's lot later that day," she wrote. "Whereas Ahmed Muhammad, an evidently obstinate-answering student bringing in a homemade 'clock' that obviously could be seen by conscientious teachers as a dangerous wired-up bomb-looking contraption (teachers who are told 'if you see something, say something!') gets invited to the White House."

In 2013, a Maryland school suspended a 7-year-old after he chewed his Pop Tart into the shape of a gun and began waving it around . School officials said that the suspension was prompted by the boy's disruptive behavior and not the Pop Tart.

In 2010, six students at a Michigan high school were suspended after school officials found firearms in their car that they had used on a deer hunt earlier that morning. School policy and signs clearly forbade the students from bringing the firearms onto school property .

In Mohamed's case, police knew that the clock wasn't a bomb but arrested him anyway .

Like her daughter Bristol, the former Alaska governor also criticized Obama for inviting the teen to the White House.

"By the way, President Obama's practice of jumping in cases prematurely to interject himself as the cool savior, wanting so badly to attach himself to the issue-of-the-day, got old years ago," she wrote. "Remember him accusing police officers doing their job as "acting stupid"; claiming if he had a son, he'd look like Trayvon Martin; claiming he needed to know who was a fault in an industrial accident so he'd 'know who's a** to kick'; etc., etc. Those actions are about as presidential as his selfie stick."

[Flagg]

^ to add to that, the really ironic thing is that it's actually statistically more likely that a kid with "a lily white complexion" will try to blow up a school, or at least, start shooting people, than someone named Mohammed.

Yeah, I was going to bring that up, but I figured some asshole would red herring it (not accusing you of doing that).

[Kon_El]

Has anyone seen an image of the outside of the clock?

[Sea Skimmer]

There has been an image of a "real suitcase bomb" floating around to justify the reaction. Anyone know what exactly it is (see below)? It looks like some kind of network testing equipment.

Because the image is really big:

http://www.trunews.com/wp-content/uploa ... itcase.jpg

So using the internet, that's a bulgar alarm control board put into a case. Which would explain why it has a bunch of connections for wires, and a power plug, but no actual sign of explosives except for a little tab referencing C4. I suspect someone assembled this as a training toy for a police bomb squad or some other purpose. Such devices are sold and commonly home built by forces, but often have precious little connecting to anything logical. What bomb would be two big control boards and no explosives? It fits the 'movie' version of a suitcase bomb, but in real life people build bombs to explode, not be 90% electronics.

The boards from Honeywell can be directly identified
http://adiglobal.cz/iiWWW/shared.nsf/i/ ... iginal.jpg
http://www.adiglobal.cz/iiWWW/shared.ns ... iginal.jpg

The original source of the image is apparently here
http://symbioticpublishing.com/Malta.html

If one googles 'training suitcase bomb' though or similar words you'll find a whole bunch of different examples of training bombs, most of which look vastly closer to what would remotely make sense for a real bomb. In that usually EXPLOSIVES are a prominent component. If you want a complex trigger you don't need anything like circuit boards that big.

This kid was dumb to bring something like this to school, but arresting him was a far worse mistake.

[Dominus Atheos]

Has anyone seen an image of the outside of the clock?

Here is the amazon page for the pencil case the clock was in:

http://www.amazon.com/Vaultz-Locking-Pe ... B001BXZ28K





The clock:

[Kon_El]

So while closed it looks exactly like a bomb according to movies? This looks more like zero tolerance bullshit than racism.

[Zaune]

Calling the police in was zero-tolerance bullshit. The cops cuffing and perp-walking the kid instead of writing it up as a false alarm was racism.