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It's difficult how much of this is a race issue and how much if it is a zero tolerance issue. At first I wanted to say, "If he were white today the same thing

It's difficult how much of this is a race issue and how much if it is a zero tolerance issue. At first I wanted to say, "If he were white today the same thing would have happened," but the more I imagine a nerdy white kid with circuit board in a case, the more I think that race played a big role.

tedks 11y ago
I'm white and I got suspended because people on the hockey team who had been bullying me for years alleged I owned books containing bomb-making instructions. It took my mom arguing my case in a special meeting with the principal, a rep from the district, and a guidance counselor to get claims of anti-semetism removed from my record (because I was and am an atheist and had expressed the viewpoint that religion was a social ill). If I had brought to school what Ahmed did, I probably would have been dropped with two to the chest and one in the head by the school cop and then double-tapped on the ground. Maybe I just would have been tased, handcuffed, arrested, and recommended for expulsion as per the school district's zero tolerance policy, but since I had long hair and wore lots of black clothing at the time my school probably regarded me as the most likely Columbine copycat candidate and would have reacted appropriately. Ironically, this was in an affluent area with plenty of wealthy foreigners living in the US. There were a few Muslim students at my school, and aside from juvenile idiots I'm sure there was almost no islamophobia, and certainly none on the institutional level. But everyone has stereotypes they fear, and if you fall into that as a child in the school system god help you.
generic_user 11y ago
How does an imagining of a nerdy white kid provided you with some factual evidence this story has anything to do with ethnicity. These stories happen now and then. Its ridiculous yes, but don't fall for identity politics click bait nonsense.
- austenallred 11y ago
  I obviously have no evidence to back this up, (I'm not sure what evidence there could possibly be outside of a long psychology study) but I could imagine a white kid in my High School getting away with it while an Arab was instantly questioned. I live in a very, very conservative area, where minorities are given a lot of crap.
dspeyer 11y ago
The case in Boston a while back involved a white victim. Granted, that was TSA, not the school, but it seems like a pretty similar group of idiots. https://boingboing.net/2007/09/21/mit-student-arrested.html https://boingboing.net/2007/09/21/mit-student-arrested.html
ryandvm 11y ago
Mmm. I'm not so sure that race ever had anything to do with it. Cover-your-ass security theater entirely incentivizes responding to every possible issue with the most drastic possible response. There is no incentive to worry about the side-effects of putting a 14 year old on the "no fly list". Instead, they're all trying as hard as possible to make sure that they're not the person that okayed somebody bringing a bomb to the science fair. Of course everything they've done after the science teacher cleared things up has been incredibly wrong...
Pharaoh2 11y ago
It's fine to react drastically when you don't know what you are dealing with. Their first react was correct. Everything after it was confirmed that it was an innocent clock was wrong. That is the part where I think racism is playing it role.

tedks 11y ago

I'm white and I got suspended because people on the hockey team who had been bullying me for years alleged I owned books containing bomb-making instructions. It took my mom arguing my case in a special meeting with the principal, a rep from the district, and a guidance counselor to get claims of anti-semetism removed from my record (because I was and am an atheist and had expressed the viewpoint that religion was a social ill). If I had brought to school what Ahmed did, I probably would have been dropped with two to the chest and one in the head by the school cop and then double-tapped on the ground. Maybe I just would have been tased, handcuffed, arrested, and recommended for expulsion as per the school district's zero tolerance policy, but since I had long hair and wore lots of black clothing at the time my school probably regarded me as the most likely Columbine copycat candidate and would have reacted appropriately. Ironically, this was in an affluent area with plenty of wealthy foreigners living in the US. There were a few Muslim students at my school, and aside from juvenile idiots I'm sure there was almost no islamophobia, and certainly none on the institutional level. But everyone has stereotypes they fear, and if you fall into that as a child in the school system god help you.

generic_user 11y ago

How does an imagining of a nerdy white kid provided you with some factual evidence this story has anything to do with ethnicity. These stories happen now and then. Its ridiculous yes, but don't fall for identity politics click bait nonsense.

austenallred 11y ago
I obviously have no evidence to back this up, (I'm not sure what evidence there could possibly be outside of a long psychology study) but I could imagine a white kid in my High School getting away with it while an Arab was instantly questioned. I live in a very, very conservative area, where minorities are given a lot of crap.

dspeyer 11y ago

The case in Boston a while back involved a white victim. Granted, that was TSA, not the school, but it seems like a pretty similar group of idiots. https://boingboing.net/2007/09/21/mit-student-arrested.html https://boingboing.net/2007/09/21/mit-student-arrested.html

ryandvm 11y ago

Mmm. I'm not so sure that race ever had anything to do with it. Cover-your-ass security theater entirely incentivizes responding to every possible issue with the most drastic possible response. There is no incentive to worry about the side-effects of putting a 14 year old on the "no fly list". Instead, they're all trying as hard as possible to make sure that they're not the person that okayed somebody bringing a bomb to the science fair. Of course everything they've done after the science teacher cleared things up has been incredibly wrong...

Pharaoh2 11y ago

It's fine to react drastically when you don't know what you are dealing with. Their first react was correct. Everything after it was confirmed that it was an innocent clock was wrong. That is the part where I think racism is playing it role.