Discussion: Ahmed Mohamed and the Myth of the Individual White Inventor

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Discussion for article #240651

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I understand the author’s premise that Latimer didn’t get credit for his contribution to major inventions. But, in all fairness, this is the norm in scientific research. Anyone who has been in academic scientific research knows that it’s the principal investigator, not their graduate students, who gets credit for the lab’s research.

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A white kid could have walked in to school with a bomb, and everyone would have assumed it was a clock.

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Yes, plus whenever a person that works for a corporation comes up with a new invention or process, it’s the property of the corporation and the corporation gets all the credit for it.

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Mitt Romney was more than happy to take credit for “turning around” companies he never even set foot in, he just financed the plant closures, layoffs and outsourcing to China.

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“Yet I would also contextualize the response to Mohamed in relation to another longstanding set of American myths and narratives, those focused on remembering and valorizing heroic white inventors …”
Ummm, I wouldn’t.
The author’s little brainchild about fetishizing white American inventors might be a valid point to make in its own right (though even in my 1970s history class in a Texas school system, George Washington Carver was always placed right up there with Bell, Edison et al). But it has zero to do with what happened to this young man or the subsequent media reaction.
This is another in what appears to be a lame new narrative form on TPM whereby writers tenuously link their pet historical grievance to today’s big headline (“Oooh a news hook!!”). The previous installment was some cat from academia’s cockamamie theory tying the killing of the African lion Cecil to the slaughter of the great Buffalo herds & the carrier pigeon.

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Does the author actually believe ANY of this was running through anyone’s mind when they all freaked out BOMB BOMB MUSLIM BOMB?

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Thanks for the comment. Since I’m the same cat from academia who wrote that piece, I would say this: none of these are pet historical grievances of mine, but rather what I try to do with my pieces here every couple weeks: highlight American history is that we don’t remember as well as we could, and that offer another layer to our current moment and controversies. You are of course welcome to find them more or less salient, and I appreciate the response in any case!

Ben

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Thanks for the comment. I agree, and as I said at the start those are likely the most immediate contexts for this overreaction. But I also believe the way we do and don’t see and define inventors in our collective memories is both another layer to a moment like this and a history worth our engagement.

Thanks,
Ben

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There are many today who exist in a paranoia that was not present just a few decades ago — Let alone the 1800’s ---- Indoctrination at it’s finest —

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Ben, I honestly think you’re reading way too much into this. It’s not about non-white inventors getting no respect. If your premise were correct, the collective response would probably have been ‘non-white kid brings stupid contraption to school.’ Instead, the response was ‘non-white kid brings suspicious homemade device to school and…possible Islamic terrorism!’

Have you any evidence from this incident to back up your hypothesis? Eyewitness accounts, interviews, or other first-hand knowledge?

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Yes, plus in that photo of Edison there are a lot of people who received zero credit for what they did as well, one of them just happens to be black. William Hammer and Frank Sprague were two very key people in Edison’s organization…yet no one ever really heard of them. But George Washington Carver is definitely a name all school kids learn, as they should. Time referenced him as a black Leonardo in 1941. Like Edison, Carver started a research laboratory, and had many employees. A lot of them were major contributors, but you never hear about them. That’s just how it is, the top guy gets the “billing”.

And indeed, not sure what this has to do with some Muslim kid being arrested. That’s more about Muslim paranoia, not inventions.

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That is not accurate. The inventor is listed on the patent. The company that pays for the R&D is assigned the patent.

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Human knowledge is cumulative, all inventions are built on work done before them, or even collaboratively.

That is why there is a Patent office. Whoever holds the patent, gets the credit, and if commercially successful, any monetary rewards.

Anybody is free to challenge the patent, and show in a court of law who really did the work.

It really isn’t a matter of opinion, there is a legal process for determining who really owns an invention.

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It’s the property of the company. And the company does still get the credit, it’s advertised as the companies invention or process, etc. But correct, yes, if someone actually goes and researches the patent, they will find that persons name somewhere in the text. That however rarely happens. People see commercials and advertisements. Had Edison been working for another corporation, you would not even know his name.

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A case in point would be Thomas Jefferson, and the way in which both the polygraph/copying machine and the Great Clock featured prominently at his historic home Monticello

Wait a minute, are you saying Thomas Jefferson consulted for the Baltimore PD? :wink:

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We are making FAR TOO MUCH of this incident. He’s a smart kid. Enough already.

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I know you are defending your position, but this is a silly comment. Of course it is advertised as the company’s invention though you’d have to be a moron to think that the “company” invented something. Obviously someone at the company did the inventing. Interesting to note that there is a commercial with a girl actress talking about her pretend mom invents cool stuff at the company being advertised.

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I don’t know as much as maybe some on the history of Edison, or how patents work and who enjoys the credit in the end. But I can see the point in that there is a cultural archetype in his country’s culture that might be at play. When you get rugged individualism mixed with sciency stuff you get John Galt and the “mad scientist” meme, or an Edison getting played up as the sole individual responsible for electric light. This only really works when you’ve got a white inventor (a “real American” according to some). It’s not hard to imagine that if Ayn Rand made Galt a Muslim, that your pot head loser Ron Paul supporter and somewhat racist cousin would be all giddy when handing you his copy of Atlas Shrugged like you’ve never heard of it.

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Yes, that defines most American consumers. They always say “wow, did you see that new device Proctor and Gamble came out with??”, not “wow, some guy named _____ just invented this cool device, I think Proctor and Gamble sells it”…

Additionally, many times a company buys a patent from an inventor, and that inventor is not credited because they sold the rights. Happens in the music biz too. When a famous songwriter runs out of ideas, songs are purchased by his Label from obscure songwriters and his/her rights are sold (they get a percentage and sign an agreement of confidentiality). Then this new Billy Joel (just as an example) hit comes out, and everyone says “wow, did you hear that new song Billy Joel wrote”…when in fact that is not what happened.

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