For those of you who are unaware of Ahmed Mohamed, let us give you a short introduction. He is a 14-year-old boy from Texas who was recently arrested for bringing a home-made clock to his school. He made the clock all by himself to show to his teacher, who thought it was a bomb. Soon he was arrested and suspended from school.
An astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called him ‘an ideal student’ and said that he is the kind of student who deserves to be at MIT or Harvard.
“If there’s any possibility that you can come visit us at MIT, I would love to give you a tour of the center for theoretical physics and the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics. You are the kind of student that we want at places like MIT and Harvard ,” she said to Ahmed on a live interview broadcast at MSNBC.
Ahmed’s story has garnered worldwide support. The President of US , Barack Obama and CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg , took on social media to support Ahmed. Google Science Fair too is ‘saving a seat’ for Ahmed as mentioned in their tweet. Twitter , has also offered an internship to him. A boy who was victimised at school became a tech hero in the real world. Faith in humanity gets restored when support arrives on such short notice, and people around the world realise a kid’s potential.
However a question still remains that had a non Islamic student made a clock to show it to the teacher, would the authorities have had him arrested, or have been remotely scared of the device? Ahmed was a victim of Islamophobia and for being a person of colour. While this was a case that made headlines around he world and elicited reactions from important people, it is imperative to think of the number of children and grown-ups who are discriminated against and would not get to realise their potentials, for they may not make it to the headlines.
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