Hello, everyone,
Okay, I’ll warn you upfront. This one is going to take a different tone. I was planning on writing an update about how I’m settling into my new place in Columbus, OH (quite well, thank you), and how I’m liking my classes (a lot), and some of the things I’ve been learning and thinking about (again, a lot). But a news story this last week is causing me to put my plans on hold. I’m sure most of you heard about Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year-old in Irving, Texas, who was arrested after bringing a homemade clock to school last Monday. If not, you can read one account of it here.
The story caught fire, and immediately people took to traditional and social media to either decry the racism of the teachers, school staff, and police involved in this case or to defend their actions. Memes were generated almost immediately (im-meme-diately?), and even President Obama reached out to Ahmed, inviting him to visit the White House. As a nation, the US has been more hyper-aware of racial tensions in the last two years than we’ve been in decades. Opinions vary, but they are plentiful. It makes sense that this story would have grabbed our attention so quickly. It involves both racism and the police, hot-button topics in recent times (dare I say “trendy”? Facebook does, though I’m not sure that’s reason enough to do anything).
But.
Yes, you guessed there’d be a “but.” However, before I go into that, I want to make it clear that I firmly believe that race was involved in this instance (and not only because I believe that as a fundamental part of our socially constructed identities, race is involved in everything). Many people have addressed this far more eloquently than I can, and if you’re interested, I can point you toward those discussions. For now, though, ask yourself this: if a white, red-headed girl named Bethany who had been part of the Irving community her whole life, and whose family was very involved in the school had brought her homemade clock to school right before the Science Fair in mid-April (so not right after September 11), would you suspect her of bringing a bomb to school? Possibly, but probably not. But let’s imagine Bethany did get arrested. Maybe it would have been because there had been a bomb scare in a nearby school district and the administration was just being careful. Maybe it would have been because her older brother was just caught dealing drugs and her family suddenly became suspect. Maybe it would have just been an honest mistake. But Bethany could be pretty sure that it wouldn’t have been because of her race. Ahmed doesn’t have that luxury. Even if race really had nothing to do with what happened in his school on Monday (and again, I don’t believe that for a hot second), the fact that anyone could suspect that his skin color might have played a role is an indication of disadvantage based on race. You might come to a different conclusion, and if so, I’d be interested in hearing it. From what I know right now, though, I believe this story is definitely “about race.”
But.
There it is again: but. You see, I get uneasy when stories like this spread so quickly. I’m always overwhelmed by how fast any news travels these days (I’m officially three decades old now—I get to say things like “these days”). But especially when questions of identity and culture and race and justice are concerned, I worry that we jump to quick conclusions based off of snappy soundbites, satisfied that headlines constitute whole stories. Our media diet is as simplified as our struggles are complicated. And I think that in the immediate rush to interpret Ahmed’s arrest as racially motivated (or not), we’re missing another equally important issue.
When I first read through the article, I found myself wondering about the teacher who reported Ahmed’s invention to the administration. Do I think she handled it well? No. Do I think race was involved in her assessment of the situation? Almost certainly.
But if we turn the legitimate question of “why did she think this child might bring a bomb to school?” outward to ask another legitimate question, “why did she think any child might bring a bomb to school?” we get an equally disturbing response: because it happens. Children bring bombs and guns and weapons to school and they kill people. I’m not sure how old this teacher is, but she would have to have been old enough in 1999 to remember when two troubled teenagers in the suburbs outside of Denver forever stripped us of the illusion that schools are inherently safe places. She would have staggered in shock, as we all did, when twenty first graders were shot and killed by a former student of Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012. At the very least, she would have been aware of the dozens of shootings and other violent acts that have occurred across primary and secondary schools and college campuses in the last few years alone.
At some point during my time teaching preschool, I was deciding whether to do a lockdown drill or an earthquake drill (we were required to do each once every three months, and I hadn’t done either that quarter). I reasoned that I should do the lockdown drill first because it was more likely that we’d need it. Folks, we were near a major fault line! The chances of an earthquake should have been much higher. Of course, my statistics could very well have been wrong, but the fact that school violence seemed not only likely, but even normal, made me furious. And yet, it goes without saying that once it is normal, we must be as prepared as possible.
So why did Ahmed’s teacher report him? For one thing, she was following school protocol. The school has affirmed that she did what was required when a student brings a suspicious object to class. In addition to whatever personal and societal reasons she had to suspect Ahmed in particular, we must not forget that she had historical and now procedural reasons to fear that a child—a child!—would come to school with a bomb. This would have been unthinkable even fifty years ago.
Again, I don’t want to detract from the racial implications of the story. We must ask both “Why him?” and “Why any child?” simultaneously and earnestly. And as with any important questions, in the asking of them, many others arise:
- What is it like to be a Muslim in Irving, Texas?
- What is the racial makeup of Ahmed’s school?
- What kinds of supports are being put in place in schools to help children with psychological and emotional disorders before they turn to violence?
- How is racism being addressed in teacher and police training programs?
- Are there any practical suggestions for reducing gun and other violence in schools (people of all political stripes agree that kids shooting kids is a terrible thing, but are there any ideas that might actually change anything)?
- How does the media contribute to or deconstruct the fears of school violence and of racial and cultural difference? What is the media’s role in reporting violence and in portraying difference?
- And perhaps most poignantly: When Ahmed responded on Twitter to the outpouring of encouragement by saying, “Thank you for your support! I really didn’t think people would care about a muslim boy,” why did he assume people wouldn’t care about Muslim boys? What does his assumption say about our society?
And there are dozens more questions we could and should be asking because this is a complicated situation. It’s important to remember that saying that “it’s complicated” doesn’t detract from the argument that Ahmed’s story is “about race.” If anything, it should reinforce it. Race is complicated, because people are complicated. Like every aspect of our identities, race can’t be separated out into neat boxes and dealt with in isolation. It is so much harder this way, but the encouraging news is that the moment we refuse easy answers, the moment we allow questions of race to spill over into other areas of life, we can finally start to have meaningful, productive conversations about it. Please keep this conversation going. What are your thoughts?
Have a good week,
Sarah/Mouse
