Ahmed Mohamed

 

Courtesy of The Dallas Morning News, David Woo

Ahmed Mohamed is a 14 year old ninth grade student attending MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas. Ahmed was a part of the robotics club in middle school and was in search of something similar in the first few weeks of high school. So in result, he made a clock in 20 minutes in hopes of a conversation starter to find a niche for him in a new school. Ahmed proceeds to show his engineering teacher his creation and got the unexpected response of "That's really nice, I advise you not to show any other teachers." Later in the day the clock's alarm beeped where Ahmed's English teacher complained and so Ahmed brings up his invention explaining it is a clock except his teacher does not believe him. Convinced it's a bomb the teacher took the clock, called the principal who proceeded to contact the police, who's initial reaction was "Yup. That's who I thought it was." and then promptly took Ahmed to a juvenile detention center where he was searched and fingerprinted until a while after where his parents had to pick him up.

    The story does not stop there MacArthur High School and Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd have both released statements concerning the event and let's just say they aren't the greatest responses in the world. My personal favorite section from MacArthur's statement is

"I recommend using this opportunity to talk with your child about the Student Code of Conduct and specifically not bringing items to school that are prohibited. Also this is good time to remind your child how important it is to immediately report any suspicious items and/or suspicious behavior they observe to any school employee so we can address it right away."

     This little snippet from the principal implies that Ahmed was at fault for bringing in the clock to school in the first place, even though everyone already knew it was a clock and Ahmed claimed it was just that. Essentially pushing this idea that Muslim kinds can't express their creativity and try to make it part of their school life. Along with the quote of the Police Chief explaining there was still not enough details proving that the device was a clock and that Ahmed was handcuffed for his own safety neither the school nor the police department want to admit that they were at fault and have yet apologized to Ahmed.

    Thankfully this story blew up and now almost everyone has heard of Ahmed's situation with outpouring support from people like President Obama to Mark Zuckerburg and with the hashtag #IStandWithAhmed trending all day, there seems to be an endless amount of support for Ahmed. All while there seems to be an endless amount of feeling of upset and anger towards the Police department and MacArthur High School. All day on every social media feed, I see celebrities, friends and strangers express their anger towards the obvious Islamophobia presented by the police and school.

Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great.

— President Obama (@POTUS) September 16, 2015

You’ve probably seen the story about Ahmed, the 14 year old student in Texas who built a clock and was arrested when he...
Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, September 16, 2015

 

Courtesy of Prajwol/Ru @OfficialPrajwol

    They're not alone in this feeling, I too feel extremely upset and angry. It's upsetting especially since this hits so personally, I'm a dumb young college Muslim American and for this to happen in a country that is praised so highly of it's acceptance of different cultures and known as the melting pot it hurts me when I see this story because Ahmed could be any one of my friends. And for such a traumatic experience to happen at such a young age how else could you make the transition to high school even worse? By getting arrested because you wanted to try to find other nerds to build robots with while wearing your super cool NASA shirt? For all this to happen just because the color of your skin or your own name feels unfair. The real sucker punch for me is that this feeling of Islamophobia isn't new. For every event that showcases Islamphobia, it always seems to have a lasting effect with it about to happen again a few months later. Whether its potentially taking away Ahmed's love for inventing and building machines to something even more drastic like death such as the earlier events this year with the Chapel Hill shooting, or the death of Ahmed Al-Jumaili.

     This is where Ahmed's story really hits me, the whole reason this whole ruckus occurred was because his English teacher didn't trust him enough to believe that it was just a clock and by taking in factors of his skin and name, the drastic jump to the idea of it being a bomb was made. That drastic jump is fueled by the reasoning of Muslims being associated with violence, Islam as a religion of terror all because of very loud vocal minority events that are a true misrepresentation of the faith as a whole.
 
    It becomes even more difficult when all cable news networks primary position on Islam is assuming it as a faith of violence, inequality towards women and essentially anything else negative. Just one example of many is when Reza Aslan, a scholar of religions, went on CNN to comment on Bill Maher's comments on the faith and the exchange between the anchors and him seem unreal. Reza right away has to take the defensive position explaining to the CNN co-host that blaming female genital mutilation on Islam is a false fact since it predates both Islam and is done across multiple African countries with differing religions. He then tries to explain the whole issue with generalization Islam with these specific country examples by listing countries where females are treated equally even to the point where they have been elected as female officials but one of co-hosts goes to interrupts with the statement "Reza, be honest though. For the most part it is not a free and open society for women in those states," If a generalized bigoted statement was done with any other faith that anchor would have been fired immediately! But today it seems like it's the norm for Islam is negative and anything positive out of it is the exception. When in actuality it's the complete opposite! There are over 1.6 billion Muslims in the world and by taking a small group blanketing the rest is a misrepresentation of millions of people. And no matter how many news stories there are, or often it's said this feeling of Islam constantly being on the defense does not feel like it's going away anytime soon. Ahmed was put on the defense right from the beginning, he never claimed his invention was anything else but a clock, but because of his name and skin he had to defend himself, and as any other person describing the invention would with, the statement "it's a clock" wasn't good enough for the teacher or police due to their misconceptions and fear of Islam.

    I love religion, I love my culture, I love how it connects families and friends together creating a community and a sense of somewhere to belong all while promoting peace and love.


    That's the whole reason why I made a silly music video behind the largest Muslim holiday of the year, Eid-Al-Fitr. I wanted to show that hey Muslims are just like everyone else, we love our family, friends, food and having a good time with all of the above. Ahmed's story hurts a lot in a bunch of different ways. It makes me angry that he goes to describe the whole process of being arrested as not feeling human, it makes me disgusted that his teacher assumed negatively of something awesome he made at such a young age, and worse of all it makes me feel depressed that the final comment in the Dallas News piece he vows never to take an invention to school again.

 

    Ahmed Mohamed is the type of kid this country needs. A young minority teenager interested in engineering, a field having large diversity issues in a country that's falling behind in mathematics and science, along attempting to convince the rest of the Muslim world that America isn't anti-Islam with its policies all while having immigrant parents. Ahmed Mohamed is the perfect representation of the average Muslim just trying to do something he loves. Ahmed's father put it best when he says "He [Ahmed] just wants to make good things for mankind"

Courtesy of The Dallas Morning News, Bryant

Read Ahmed Mohamed's full story here: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150915-irving-ninth-grader-arrested-after-taking-homemade-clock-to-school.ece

Emotion

    Writing so often about the human experience in a way where everything just feels so EDGY loses its lust fast. Great art is great because it is able to shroud aspects of experience in ways that could be completely ignored and taken as fun light hearted humor. The animated TV show RICK AND MORTY does this EXTREMELY WELL. Touching on social and political topics in a 22 minute animated Television show all while being entertaining and funny to watch is an amazing feat done by the show. My blog isn't great art. It's a dumb college boy trying to write his feelings and emotions so he doesn't feel icky anymore. Do I read my own posts after posting them? NO, OF COURSE. I type all these words and ideas, click post, and am able to sleep easier at night because of it. Is this a larger comment on my own fear of my feelings only being accepted when they are on a public platform with eyes to read while still feeling hypocritical and judgmental when others do it on other platforms? OF COURSE IT IS. But I don't know how to fix this besides just writing more. It's not like I only want to talk about SAD BOIS moments, the last two posts have been about god knows what, and I have a few more in the back burner not quite ready to share either. I'd like to think the posts where I'm not being super emo are the posts where I can feel proud of. Something I'm willing to share and say "hey look this is my opinion on a thing and I think I wrote well! Do you agree?" But those moments only come so often, while it seems 95% of the time I just want to type some words down, get my emotions out of the way and go to bed. Is it because I don't know how to handle my own emotions and writing them here helps me keep them in check or at least ignore them till the next day? OF COURSE, wait I feel like I'm just repeating the same thing now.

    This is the place I'm stuck. I'm so narcissistic that I only feel comfortable talking about other things when I'm in check and the only way to get myself in check is by writing about how I FEEL, or why I FEEL SO EDGY 2DAY. And that's pretty fukin frustrating just because I don't think anyone likes feeling edgy lmao. It's sorta awful and annoying in the way of enjoying anything. You often read artists talk about a dark time in their lives and using those experiences to help them create their what seems often greatest piece of work they've ever done. And here I am lost!!! I'm not an artist!! I think I'm a creative type? Although I'm unsure where or how to express these creative thoughts! And that's what this fuqin blug is for. But is the blug really a solution if this dark feeling keeps coming back?????

WHO KNOWS

whats next dude!!

ur not funny

Instagram changed and I don't like it.

    Instagram is a fun app to scroll through photos done by professionals, celebrities, friends, and family. It had a clean design where all photos were in a square crop and had equal real estate on the screen. This was a constraint but just like how Vine's six second constraint in video allowed for a whole new form of entertainment the square ratio constraint allowed Instagram to have a feed that was organized and well kept. This worked well since Instagram was primarily a social media platform on most smartphones that focused on photos. Each social media platform has it's advantages and disadvantages, but Instagram really shined through it's simple clean cut design. Yes only square photos could be posted but that made the explore page show you all the photos at their full instead something like a cropped thumbnail, and the same applies to any user's profile showing a preview of all their posted photos. But slowly Instagram was changing, some updates for the better and some for the worst. The subtle updates to the explore tab made it easier to see more content, and the addition of video at first felt like a last minute update to go against Vine but with the restriction of 15 second videos it fits the feeling of how Twitter also allows for short videos to be posted. Twitter is for short to the point 140 character thoughts, with maybe pictures and short videos. So with Instagram having at most 15 second videos along with a quick glance with photos doesn't seem ideal but it works.

SO HERE'S THE FUCKING PROBLEM.

    Instagram just introduce an update that may seem minor but throws the whole balance of the social media platform off. The restriction of photos only fitting a 1:1 ratio is gone. Now any photo regardless the ratio can be uploaded and the photo is just adjusted to fit the screen. Taking away this restriction is essentially taking away any fence between lions and zebras resulting in chaos or at least in this case, an ugly feed to scroll through favoring large portrait photos over any landscape ones. With the restriction gone there's no reason to upload a photo in square ratio anymore, it doesn't take up as much real estate as a vertical photo and that just looks better because the lack of white space on the phone screen. With every photo fitting that 1:1 ratio all photos had equal space around them so when scrolling through the feed on any phone regardless of how large it is it felt like it belonged and deserved as much as a glance from the eyes as any other. However now with this new update there is an unfair balance of how much space a photo takes on a screen and that all depends on the ratio it's uploaded as. Here's an example.

    Shown above are three photos, one in a square ratio, one uploaded as a landscape shot, and one uploaded as a full vertical shot. This is essentially the new feed, a mix and match of different ratios from 0-100. The square ratio worked so well because while scrolling through the feed everything felt equal, the only factor to judge on a photo is what the photo was of. Now the chance of getting a glance from scrolling through the feed isn't about the actual photo but rather if the photo was large enough to capture the attention of the user! There's no longer a reason to upload in any other ratio besides the largest vertical one. It would have been fine if that was the restriction for all photos but it isn't. There is essentially no reason to upload a landscape photo. Even if it is an amazing photo the resolution would have to shrink just because 100% of phones focus on the length rather than the height, once again showing why a portrait photo is favored now on Instagram over any other ratio. 

    Is there anything to do against this update? No probably not. Will I continue to use instagram? Yea probably. Will I only post vertical photos now? idk prob fam if it has a higher chance of getting likes hell yea im bout. 

Loss

The world is very scary and it's upsetting to see even after major events of loss, change isn't happening to prevent similar events from happening in the future. From feeling sad, to complete rage and then confusion on the current state of America's gun laws and restrictions today is just another prime example of these emotions. Alison Parker, and Adam Ward were just people doing their jobs with no idea of what was going to happen. This kind of event isn't an exception but has become common today, almost to the point where many feel desensitized from the whole event. And every similar event ends with a very similar reaction and ending, many yelling for some regulation to prevent more of these from happening, many yelling against it, and many graves dug for people whose lives ended much quicker than expected. At this point I don't know what to say or what to do except just ask how much more loss do we have to go through as a community to realize we need some form of change to prevent this type of pain.



Rest in Peace Alison and Adam and my thoughts and prayers go out to your families and friends.

G R I N D

    Another day, another... idk? There's a lot to talk about, my first time viewing Star Wars, my interest in feeling the Bern, or even the struggle of finding a cool tapestry for my room in college but let's save all that for later. Let's talk about the forgettable days.
    The days where nothing exciting or truly memorable happen are the days that aren't appreciated till they are gone forever. The normalcy of waking up everyday and doing a daily routine becomes boring but when really thinking about it, it's all taken for granted. Every small encounter, every stroke of luck, good or bad, is part of that day and that day will never happen again. Sure these events are surely going to happen again but the appreciation factor doesn't really come in until it's gone. That is what is a shame to it all. Trudging through life focusing on the mundane and being upset at it being boring will make it all the more sour when these moments are gone. Life is fleeting, everyone dies, and there's still going to be a world here after you end.
    Yesterday was about change and how difficult it is to adapting to it. Today is about the GRIND and how the appreciation of the GRIND can make it easier to adapt to whatever is happening throughout life. Having a conversation with change and daily mundane routines makes no sense! They're complete opposites! But right now for me I've already approached this thought process that this change has entered the mundane lifestyle, and that's why I have so much angst towards adapting it. I DON'T WANT THIS TO BE MY DAILY ROUTINE I WANT TO CHANGE THIS TO SOMETHING I'M COMFORTABLE WITH. Yesterday I briefly mentioned the fluff that eventually everything works out in the end, and honestly it's easier said than actually believing in it. I don't know what happened today that made me realize that everything will be okay except for that fact that everything today was just okay. There was nothing amazing, there was nothing horrific. It was a just a day.

CHANGE

      Change is a difficult aspect of life that I don't think I do really well with. Well at least BIG CHANGE. Going from a middle school where I knew everyone to a high school where I practically know nobody, and now for it to happen all over again in college, except this time I'm not a punk ass middle school kid but an arrogant lil fuq. Every transition seems to be radically different from the last meaning no matter how well prepared you may think you are, you really have no idea how to handle a big change in your life. The classic gut reaction from me is to be really sad during night and just really angry during the day, all while having a facade of being a clown on the outside (which probably doesn't help much either.)

     Adapting seems to be the most difficult part of the whole process and I really don't like it. It's understandable, nobody likes the rough parts! My life motto is that "Everything works out in the end." but damn man, the middle part fucking suck. Adapting to a whole new environment where you essentially know nobody and everyone you know that was super close to you is now hours away from you hurts. It's difficult to replace a long term relationship with a person you just met for a few weeks. Everyone else seems to do it so easily! How is it possible?!? Are they just lying to themselves?? Is everything just fake?!? I don't know and that's what's so upsetting. It's hard to share tough times too, especially when you have no one close to share it with. I'm angry, most of it probably being unjustified angst from the big transition and I don't know what to do with it all. I don't know how to make friends I truly respect, I don't know how to appreciate myself, and I don't know what to do with all my time and unrestricted freedom.

     There's a lot of change happening and I don't know how to handle it all so right now I'm just flopping like a fish out of water. But hey! Hopefully it does work out because if it doesn't shit idk what I'd do, maybe start a lemonade stand?