The Texas police have rejected the claim made by the family of the high school student who was arrested for making a clock for his science class that he was detained because of his name. But 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed was removed from his class by the police, handcuffed in front of his classmates and brought to a juvenile detention center because of his Muslim name and dark complexion. Had Mohamed been white, fair-haired and a blue-eyed John Smith, he would not have been arrested and his story would not have become a social and traditional media rage, leading to countless invitations from famed people and institutions, including a sit-down chat with President Barack Obama himself in the White House. The clock that Mohamed invented for his class didn't look like a bomb, as some of his teachers and the police who were called in have claimed. He just looked to some like someone who might want to make a bomb. This is the Islamophobia problem, a reality American Muslims have endured for years. The police and school officials did not follow protocol by calling Mohamed's parents or offering him an attorney – demonstrating that there is a special justice system for white Americans and another, different set of rules set up for American Muslims, particularly those of color, including their children. There is outrage at the treatment this young boy endured, and at the ignorance of the adults in his school and the police who either cannot tell the difference between a clock and a bomb, or worse, does not want to know the difference. Mohamed is the kind of pupil with an excellent academic record with no prior history of any kind of delinquency or rebelliousness. But that stellar history and reputation instantly turned to dust by the threat his Muslim background posed. Mohamed's standing as an honorable pupil was immediately forgotten by the school's imagined threat of terror, although all he was doing was the most American of things: Tinkering, inventing and creating. Either to advance their careers or TV ratings, so many American politicians, columnists and pundits like to say what they think about Islam and Muslims, except their explanations are based on no evidence, little argument and zero interaction with actual Muslims. They make broad, sweeping, and ridiculous generalizations, which would be wholly and completely unacceptable if directed at any other people. That say radicalism is pervasive in Muslim communities, that American Muslims are terrorists. They are misinformants peddling misinformation. Yet America takes them seriously. And people who do not know any better eat it up. They think it's the truth. Is it small wonder then that in the school room where Mohamed, who is of African, specifically Sudanese descent, was questioned, one officer who was conducting the inquest and who had just met Mohamed for the first time, remarked, “that's who I thought it was”? Even though 14 years have passed since Sept. 11, the anniversary of which was marked last week, some Americans still cannot believe that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful, or that American Muslims are Americans or that people should not be judged by the actions of others they are completely unrelated to. The irrational response of school officials in Irving, Texas, isn't limited to one student, one school or one city or state. Today, anyone can engage in bigotry against Arab Americans and American Muslims and seemingly get away with it. The US has spent billions of dollars promoting math and sciences in schools across the country, but has spent little capital on educating its citizens that bigotry against an entire faith community is unacceptable.
