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Thursday, September 17, 2015

Because of course if your name is Mohamed, you have to be a terrorist, right?

Clock-making teen transferring to another school, family says
In an interview late Wednesday with MSNBC's Chris Hayes [N.b., I've changed the link CNN had, as it was incorrect and pointed to a different video], Ahmed said he was pulled out of class at MacArthur High School by his principal and five police officers and taken to a room where he was questioned for about an hour and a half.

He said he asked the adults if he could call his parents.

"They told me 'No, you can't call your parents,'" Ahmed said. "'You're in the middle of an interrogation at the moment.' They asked me a couple of times, 'Is it a bomb?' and I answered a couple of times, 'It's a clock.'"

"I felt like I was a criminal," the teenager said. "I felt like I was a terrorist. I felt like all the names I was called."

Hayes asked what he meant.

In middle school, Ahmed said, he had been called "bombmaker" and a "terrorist."

"Just because of my race and my religion," he said, adding that when he walked into the room where he was questioned, an officer reclined in a chair and remarked, "That's who I thought it was."

"I took it to mean he was pointing at me for what I am, my race," the freshman explained.
I have no doubt that if a white student brought a clock in to show his (or her) teacher, this would not have happened. It's ridiculous.

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