THE STORY

Welcome to Irving, Texas, a town where even the brightest of young minds are apparently doomed to perish without merit when a display of brilliance is perceived as a threat. This only applies if you fit a certain targeted profile, the characteristics of which I am confident most Americans are well-acquainted with by now.

A high school freshman by the name of Ahmed Mohamed—yes, cue the groans because we already know where this story is going—was eager to show his engineering class teacher an invention that he created over the weekend. Resembling a clock of sorts, he told people that he had spent a mere twenty minutes piecing it together.

According to the Washington Times, he made it using a circuit board and a tiger hologram pencil case. Here’s what a combination of the latter might look like:

  

Most would regard the 14-year-old’s inventing capabilities as nothing short of fascinating; an emergence of creativity and innovation with the potential to go far. Mohamed brought the ensemble to class on Monday morning determined to wow teachers but to his dismay, the engineering teacher simply warned him against showing others.

These ominous words rang true later upon the discovery of the clock by another teacher who, alarmed, deemed it prudent to inform the authorities under the belief that the creation posed a threat. Shortly after, a team of five policemen crowded Mohamed, where he was unceremoniously handcuffed in front of his peers and taken away for interrogation.

Not bad for someone who had stepped foot in the school for the first time just a few weeks ago, huh?

WHY DOES THIS MATTER?

What truly terrifies me is not only how commonplace this sort of response towards anything even remotely resembling Islam is, but how this attitude can detrimentally impact future endeavors. What does this course of action tell future inventors and engineers who may hail from a certain background?

For anyone who has even stepped foot into a high school robotics team room, the abundance of a variety of circuit boards and other unknown gadgets will become immediately apparent. Read: NOT A BOMB.

Freshman year of high school is a fleeting period of time where the possibilities to explore are endless, where creativity has yet to be stifled by the troubles of puberty, high school drama and the like. This incident may well leave Mohamed traumatized for the future, though judging by his response to the news outlets and on social media, the young man is cut from a tougher cloth than the rest.

PRECAUTION OR STANDARD PROCEDURE?

In regards to safety concerns: there is no doubt that upon notification of a real and true threat, proper action should be taken. However, if officials did indeed believe the invention to be a potential bomb, where was the alarm? Where was the school evacuation, the loudspeaker announcement? Where was the uproar?

When I was a sophomore in high school, my institution received a phone call regarding a bomb threat and immediately evacuated all students and staff to send them to nearby facilities. This took place while snow fell heavily, leaving students to evacuate without coats or proper attire, many still clad in shorts and t-shirts as they were forced to leave gym class. This is an appropriate reaction to harm.

In contrast, Irving MacArthur High simply isolated the student to be under severe questioning by officials and allowed classes to continue. The Dallas Morning News reports that when Mohamed was confronted by a police offer after being withdrawn from class, the first words the man uttered were, “Yup. That’s who I thought it was.”

A BLESSING IN DISGUISE

Judging by the outpouring of support and cries of injustice on social media, most of the Internet is on Mohamed’s side, and rightly so. Prominent figures such as President Barack Obama, Democratic frontrunner Hilary Clinton and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg have offered words of sincerity and solace to the bespectacled youth—his intellect recognized, it is no doubt that he is guaranteed a career before he gets to college.

A new hashtag, #IStandWithAhmad, is making its way around the web, with hundreds of thousands of people proudly creating a virtual backbone for Mohamed.

Yet our current struggle remains a political one.

Ali Saad Dawabsheh was killed during an arson attack on West Bank today. Eighteen months old, with no capacity to fathom the horrors that surrounded his entire upbringing and robbed the ability to ever understand why his life was taken. He never stood a chance.

Yet people are insisting on using the terrible tragedy to catapult the usual religious propaganda.

During my own times of hardship, I let my mind wander freely and it often rests upon the notion of how very lucky I am.  A living, breathing being with a mind of my own and with opportunities resting upon my feet. Save for any obstacle which I have the right, at least, to overcome.

How very lucky I am, that I live in my world. How very sad, that I live in this world.

May your soul be met with the open arms of the heavens, you poor child.

The shooting in Texas by two gunman in response to an Anti-Islamic art exhibition is reminiscent of January’s Charlie Hebdo tragedy.

In an essay submitting to obtain a scholarship, I wrote about whether or not the French government should limit free speech in the interest of protecting the public. While I objected to such an act in my piece, I also referred to the Hebdo incident by a phrase that goes along the lines of, “if you poke a hornet’s nest, don’t be surprised by the stings.”

This phrase should be understood as a whole because I am in no way justifying retaliation violence in any form. This does not mean that I cannot express my disgust towards prejudiced groups of people who insist on provoking a large population of people with a huge offense because of the actions of the few. Freedom of expression is a double-edged sword where one is perfectly able to lend their minds to free speech, but cannot be ignorant to the fact that there may be some sort of repercussion to the actions: it’s a two-way street.

The cover of Time magazine’s issue last week was the most compelling photo I have seen regarding the riots in Baltimore.

It is 2015–the 21st century–and matters regarding race are still making headlines, causing violence and deaths, and driving a deeper wedge into two dominant groups in the US. How can we expect to progress and function as a society? Listening to commentary from social media sounds like the interview for a street crime–everyone saw, heard or understood something different.

The magazine cover says it all: despite all of our technological, scientific and literary accomplishments, much of American has remained the same.

Because a single individual’s personal life and choices are on par with over 1,000 lives being extinguished. ‘Murica.

The order of priority when it comes to stories of varying nature is a concept that makes me feel so uneasy while consuming the news. News sources are the only way individuals are able to get any information on the goings-on of this world; knowing this, newspapers take advantage of this vulnerability and bombard us with stretched-out and unimportant stories like celebrity woes, to the point where we do in fact begin to see these things as news, and hence become more attuned to them.

I used to follow Kylie and Kendall Jenner on Instagram until I came to my senses. If you don’t know who they are, then you are doing something right and I beg you to show me your ways.

In Nepal, a disastrous earthquake struck the city, leading to a death toll of nearly 1,200 and counting.

1200 people in one go. I cannot even fathom the idea of it nor illustrate what that must look like.

“For years, people have worried about an earthquake of this magnitude in western Nepal, which saw its last massively destructive event more than 100 years ago. Many feared that an immense death toll would result, in part because in recent years construction has been largely unregulated, said Ganesh K. Bhattari, a Nepalese expert on earthquakes now living in Denmark.”

I find this quote particularly striking because it is reminiscent of a tragedy that occurred exactly two years ago in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which incidentally is the city that I was born in. A poorly-constructed, 8-story building that was in need of immediate evacuation collapsed, resulting in the deaths of nearly 1,200, the same as this natural disaster in Nepal. The word murder seems to be more appropriate here as the owner of Rana Plaza, the aforementioned building where many people slaved away at low wages for giant, American-based corporations, was told about the threat of a building collapse right before it occurred, a comment which he dismissed as unimportant. Of course, I wouldn’t want to be accused of libel, but be that as it may…

Um–obviously? Granted, the article in question is from the Daily News and any material they circulate should always be taken with a grain of salt…or after a few shots of tequila.

The story only serves to provide evidence to my earlier blog about the inequalities with the so-called unbiased SHSAT. So, YES, to all those who protest that the exam provides equal opportunity for admission into the specialized high schools of NYC…this is the proof that you weren’t looking for. Does it really require a study? All one needs to do is ask a student who attends the school rather than conduct a study that is a thorough waste of time since it appears to point to the obvious, for anyone familiar with the saga anyway.

As one source in the story puts it: “These are predominately schools for the privileged,” said David Bloomfield, an education professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Grad Center. “It’s about access to tutors, access to information and access to better middle schools.”

Which just goes to show that nothing in life is really unbiased–a combination of luck and economic status is an extremely significant factor.

This story does not reflect that of media bias or racial discrimination, but rang home when I came across it.

In 2008, a young couple fell from the roof of my apartment building early in the morning. I woke up one Saturday morning to see my backyard swarmed with police and feds, and to my horror, saw the body. The man was wearing a white t-shirt splattered with blood from the impact of his fall.

To my knowledge, the case was never resolved–the couple was apparently drunk from a night out, and it was unclear why they were on the roof because they did not live in the building. But it was one of those memories you don’t ever forget. For years after their death, friends and family of the deceased would come visit the spot where they fell in our backyard. I would keep vigil by the window some nights, watching people howl with grief and feel it resonate under the empty sky. It wasn’t the first time I heard of such an unusual death in my neck of the woods. It wouldn’t be the last. But it was a terrible, unreasonable way to die.

This just in–yet ANOTHER black man, this time in Tulsa, Oklahoma, shot to death by a white police officer. On video.

One of the officers involved in the incident was recorded saying the following:

“He shot me! He shot me, man. Oh, my god, I’m losing my breath,” Harris says as officers pin him to the ground following the lethal gunshot.

“You fucking ran! Shut the fuck up! Fuck your breath!” an officer shouts as Harris lies dying.

This is nothing short of abhorrent. I initially started write these blog posts in an effort to show how often minority-related issues are presented in the media and what sort of light is shed on these issues, but I never thought I would be handed so much ammunition. As one person put it, “another day, another hashtag.”

#JusticeforEricHarris #BlackLivesMatter