Al Jazeera: Donning his NASA T-shirt, young Ahmed Mohamed walked into his ninth grade class Monday morning, proudly holding the clock he had meticulously assembled at home. The 14-year-old Muslim American student, with a zeal for assembling, disassembling and fixing radios, computers and go-karts, hoped to draw the praise of his teacher. Instead, Dallas police were called in, Ahmed’s hands were cuffed, and the stunned high school student was removed from the premises.
Schools routinely reward innovation, creativity and hard work. However, Mohamed was Muslim, which drove his teacher and school administrators to first, view the homemade digital clock as a bomb; and second, relate his electronic handiness to terrorist activity.
More than merely a case of individual bigotry or institutional negligence, Mohamed’s case manifests the spread of anti-Muslim bigotry, or “Islamophobia”, into the most formative and vulnerable spaces of American society – schools.
Islamophobia is an American psychosis that sways popular views and formal policy. But it must also be understood as a form of racism that is penetrating American schools, and endangering Muslim American youth in the very spaces where their bodies, intellect, and ingenuity should be nurtured, not punished.
Categories: Accepting Islam, Americas, Anti-Islam Campaign
Out of resourcefulness,bombs have timing devices. Even pressure cookers have been used as bombs. Remember the Boston Marathon explosion? The bomb maker was equally a young ‘resourceful’ muhammadan. When the news first broke out there were shouts of ‘islamophobia’, ‘racism’ and such other nonsense that normally make the rounds whenever blame is put where it should be. To the utter shame of the defenders of the bomber, he owned up in court that he was guilty as charged. That silenced his supporters.