I'm amazed that this is enough to spark discussion when the reaction to it is so unbelievably obvious.
1. If any part of the reaction was racially motivated, that is deplorable.
2. To the extent this was done out of caution, the same action should be taken regardless of what colour skin the person has or what he or she believes in.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
I'm amazed that this is enough to spark discussion when the reaction to it is so unbelievably obvious.
1. If any part of the reaction was racially motivated, that is deplorable.
2. To the extent this was done out of caution, the same action should be taken regardless of what colour skin the person has or what he or she believes in.
What happens when there's a bomb threat (whether real or fake) in public? The said place gets evacuated and bomb squad is called in. Neither of which happened in this incident.
That could either be a giant procedural #### up by the entire police organization and the school, or they let the bigotry cloud their minds because it's a brown kid named Ahmed Mohamed.
The fact that the police and school believe they did nothing wrong leads to the latter being true.
Interesting that they admit this but still proceeded to arrest, mugshot, fingerprint and then interrogated him alone without his parents. I still don't know the legal implications of the interrogation (is it okay to do that without a legal guardian or legal representation?).
Oh, and the school still suspended him after figuring it out that they were wrong.
A Texas police chief on Friday defended the officers who earlier this week detained and handcuffed a 14-year-old high school student for bringing to school a homemade clock that was thought to be a fake bomb.
The police chief in Irving, Tex., Larry Boyd, said in an interview on CNN that officers assigned to MacArthur High School had determined “fairly quickly” that the device was not a bomb. Then the issue, he said, was to determine why the teenager, Ahmed Mohamed, had brought the device to school.
“What they were investigating was whether he brought a device to school with the intention of creating alarm,” Chief Boyd said.
“One thing is clear to me, regardless of what we did, no matter what decision was made, there would’ve been people who agreed with it and people who disagreed with it,” he said.
What happens when there's a bomb threat (whether real or fake) in public? The said place gets evacuated and bomb squad is called in. Neither of which happened in this incident. That could either be a giant procedural #### up by the entire police organization and the school, or they let the bigotry cloud their minds because it's a brown kid named Ahmed Mohamed. The fact that the police and school believe they did nothing wrong leads to the latter being true.
So it's a live issue solely because people are trying to argue the likely motivations of the people involved here, with the limited information available? I mean not that it's the first time that speculation runs rampant on an internet forum about some sensationalist news story... but really?
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to CorsiHockeyLeague For This Useful Post:
“What they were investigating was whether he brought a device to school with the intention of creating alarm”
Right. He intended to bring it to school to create alarm. That's why one of the very first people he showed was a teacher - a person in authority over him. Definitely out to create all kinds of alarm. The teacher wasn't alarmed by the actual clock. The teacher knew he/she worked with other bigoted/racist #######s who were going to take his name, his belief system, and his ethnicity, and show that they were in fact, bigots/racists - hence telling him not to show it to others.
The alarm was not created by this child. The alarm was created by #######s so steeped in manufactured post-911 fear, and bigotry/racism, that they fell all over themselves to immediately say it was a bomb - yet did not follow anything remotely close to procedure had this even been remotely close to a bomb.
Lots of backpeddling from the police.
The Following User Says Thank You to Minnie For This Useful Post:
So it's a live issue solely because people are trying to argue the likely motivations of the people involved here, with the limited information available? I mean not that it's the first time that speculation runs rampant on an internet forum about some sensationalist news story... but really?
Do you believe the police departments actions were appropriate? I certainty do not and the fact they won't say a peep about the incident raises questions about how it was handled.
They are not going to say anything, so it's up to the public to pressure them to justify their actions.
He's right, it's a minor story being blown out of proportion on message boards. That's why the president responded. He always responds when a big deal is made out of nothing.
The bleeding heart crew might want to sit back and wait this one out.
Yeah, I saw this yesterday, and kinda raised my eyebrow at it. I have no tolerance for racial profiling, or discrimination, but it looks like this kid might have been doing a bit of a troll job, and it backfired pretty bad on him. It is clear he invented/built nothing. He took the case off of a clock, that's it. The big tip off for me was the ribbons and circuit boards. DIY projects look nothing like that.
I really hope that he wasn't trying to exploit the real racial stereotypes that do exist, for some sort of personal gain or attention. He was wrongly stereotyped, but I wonder if that is exactly the reaction he was going for.
The bleeding heart crew might want to sit back and wait this one out.
Quite the quote:
Quote:
We’re supposed to be sensitive to school violence, but apparently religious and racial sensitivity trumps that. At least we have another clue about how the sensitivity and moral outrage pecking order lies.
If this kid really is smart, he'd start producing and selling these clocks while they're hot.
I guess you didn't read the article. All the kid did was take apart a existing click and mounted it in a pencil case. He didn't make our invent anything.
Do you believe the police departments actions were appropriate? I certainty do not and the fact they won't say a peep about the incident raises questions about how it was handled. They are not going to say anything, so it's up to the public to pressure them to justify their actions.
I don't believe anything one way or the other as I feel it's extremely likely that the public has a fraction of the full story on this, and given that, if I had a "belief" about whether this was appropriate that belief wouldn't matter much.
I stand by my post above - if this was racially motivated behavior, that is deplorable. In general, a high degree of caution should be exercised regardless of the racial background of the student involved.
I don't feel further exploration of the issue adds anything...
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
I guess you didn't read the article. All the kid did was take apart a existing click and mounted it in a pencil case. He didn't make our invent anything.
The road to riches for many bad entrepreneurs my friend. FYI, Magic Bullets are crappy blenders with a happy face on the front. I was just thinking how great it would be if this kid's first thought wasn't to call a lawyer.
