When I was fourteen, I tumbled out of my mom’s car door in all my gangly glory, a tangle of limbs perched outside the doors of my new high school. I had recently been relieved of my orthodontia and was still a little (read: extremely) skeptical of boys. I was brimming with possibility and on the verge of discovering what I could give to the world. I was awkward and my hair was unbrushed, but I was unstoppable.
When Ahmed Mohamed was fourteen, he was suspended, handcuffed, and arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school.
Last Monday, school officials confronted the Dallas 9th grader after he brought his engineered handiwork to the campus of MacArthur High School. Although Mohamed identified it as an alarm clock, his English teacher confiscated the device amidst concerns of a “hoax bomb” threat. He was then taken into questioning, bound by handcuffs for safety purposes, and temporarily transported to a juvenile detention center.
Although after further investigation the school quickly dropped all charges against him, it was much too late. Mohamed’s name had already reached the tongues and tweets of people across the nation. On late Wednesday morning, the hashtag #IStandWithAhmed had hurtled to claim the top trending spot. At its peak, 2,000 tweets a minute were pouring into his defense.
The fire continued to burn as numerous public figures tweeted their own messages of support, including comedian Aziz Ansari and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. President Barack Obama invited Mohamed to bring his “cool clock” to the White House, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg extended his own invitation to pay Facebook headquarters a visit. Heck, Twitter even offered the high schooler an internship.
Social media was aflame with solidarity for young Ahmed Mohamed. Solidarity, punctuated by lots of question marks. And the “what-ifs” that inspired Mohamed to turn 20 minutes and some newfound passion into his now-controversial creation transitioned into a much different line of “what-ifs.”
What if he had been born with fair skin and blonde hair? What if his name was John or Connor or Michael, or anything less indicative of his Muslim background? Would his “suspicious-looking” device have been just a cool robotics project? Would he have been praised for his ingenuity and independent thinking?
What if this is all just about race and religion?
But what if this is about more than that?
It is very plausible that the outcome of this news story would have ended differently had Mohamed appeared more akin to his Caucasian classmates. Perhaps there would have been no suspicion surrounding his clock in the first place.
But as I see it, there is another innocent victim under attack here, one far bigger than one person and more encompassing than even race: intellectual curiosity.
Safety’s importance cannot be argued. In the minds of mothers and fathers everywhere, the safety of their children remains at the forefront. In sending children off to receive an education, parents trust that their kiddos rest in caring hands and under cautious guidance. They say their bus stop goodbyes. All is well. Then one day, out of nowhere, their worst nightmare: a news bulletin comes flashing across the bottom of their television screen, searing the caustic words “school shooting” or “bomb threat” into their vision. Trust is replaced with fear.
But fear shouldn’t slap handcuffs on creativity. As scary as the prospect of these tragedies occurring is, the thought of a generation of youth taught to repress their own minds is even more terrifying. Safety means restricting gun laws and administering background checks and saving lives. It does not, however, mean sacrificing innovation or stifling innocent curiosity.
Just as we are aware of protecting our children’s lives, we must be just as aware of protecting their creativity.
Although the United States appears to reign superior in many aspects of the global technology market, we’re a few long strides behind in childhood education. We ranked a mere 36th out of 65 countries in a report by the Programme for International Student Assessment that measured the mathematical performance of 15-year-olds. Science scores didn’t fare much better, with the U.S. ranking 28th place. Our educational programs are receiving thousands of dollars more than those of other nations, yet our brilliant kids are falling behind.
What do we do?
We need to make a distinction between safety and censorship, between fear of the legitimate and fear of simply that which is different from us. We need to bolster up STEM students like Ahmed Mohamed, with their NASA t-shirts, thick-rimmed glasses, and minds overflowing with ideas that redefine what it means to create, for these are the minds that will reside in Silicon Valley in 10 years, creating our future.
So yes, this story could be about race. But maybe, just maybe, it’s also about a different kind of race — the race to make our youth seen, their potential known, and their ideas unstoppable. And start your own makeshift timers, because this race begins now.
On your marks. Get set. Grow.
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