Woofing

Oh the Humanity! Little 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed, a persecuted genius who built a digital clock for a science project, was detained at his high school, rudely questioned and hauled off in handcuffs by those bigoted, white, Islamophobic Texans in Irving.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest weighed in.

“This episode is a good illustration of how pernicious stereotypes can prevent even good-hearted people who have dedicated their lives to educating young people from doing the good work that they set out to do,” said Earnest.

President Obama has invited Ahmed to the White House and talks of displaying the clock there as an inspiration to young inventors everywhere.

Mark Zuckerberg declared the future belongs to young geniuses like Ahmed. Hillary Clinton tweeted her support.

On the right voices cried, hey wait a minute, that kid’s dad is a Muslim activist who has twice run for president of Sudan! He’s probably using his kid to do a dry run for a real terrorist attack and get us to relax security in our schools!

Has everybody gone nuts?

To begin with, the kid invented nothing, built nothing. He took apart a digital clock and repackaged it in a metal case.

He answered evasively when questioned. He did indeed ride to the police station in handcuffs, because that’s what police regs say you do when you get a ride to the police station. They were taken off, then put back on when his sister asked to take a pic of him in cuffs.

“The people at the school thought it might be a bomb, perhaps because it looks exactly like a ****ing bomb,” said comedian Bill Maher.

Does anybody in this day and age seriously think this was an innocent mistake?

Asked if they’d have done the same for a white kid (and why does that question always come up?) Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd said they’d have followed the same procedures.

You know what? I believe him. Mostly because I’ve been through this with my own son in a somewhat less spectacular fashion. He used to like to make guns out of Legos you see.
Ahmed’s father, Mohamed El Hassan, rather than come down to pick up his son and giving him holy hell for raising a fuss, struck a tragic pose.

“Because my son’s name is Mohamed and because of Sept. 11 he got mistreated,” El Hassan said.

The North Texas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is “investigating.”

And of course we’re hearing the term “Islamophobia” bandied about. Evidently there is an epidemic of this, though curiously the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has not caught on to it yet.

Outside the extremes of left and right: “He’s a victim of rabid Islamophobia!” and “He’s a terrorist in training!” I could think of a couple-three explanations.

El Hassan is the leader of a small Sufi group in Texas. As it happens I’ve long been fascinated by these interesting people and know more than most about them. They are often persecuted as heretics in the lands of Islam and consequently have learned to express their teachings in parables and jokes.

Could it be this family is trying to teach us all a lesson about tolerance and not jumping to conclusions because of invidious stereotypes?

On the other hand, El Hassan came to this country and worked his way up from humble jobs to become a successful businessman. Could it be that he’s inspired by the Modern American Dream, “sue somebody and get rich”?

Or could it be that this kid is kind of a teenage jerk who knew very well how people would react if a kid named Mohamed brought something that looks a lot like a bomb to school? That he’s “woofing.”

Spiritual me wants to believe the first, but cynical me remembers that’s just the kind of thing I’d have gotten a kick out of when I was an idiot teen.