Discussion for article #242136
What a waste and we wonder why we have no skilled workers or inspiring young people. This is actually a very scary precedent. Because of one bigoted women in a small Texas town and a huge contingent of bigots in our country this family has been run out of the country. Why can’t we just run the bigoted woman out of office and country and keep the kid and his family? In the long run we would be better off.
This sounds like a bright and shiny future, but what about the friends he is leaving behind, what about the adjustment to another country for him and his family, no pressure there to succeed is there?
5 Likes
Not the first nor the last family to decide to seek greener pastures elsewhere. I decided ten years ago that I’d rather raise my kids in Canada.
6 Likes
So it took these genius Barney Fife’s a month to figure out what a clock is and does? Welcome to know-nothing America.
7 Likes
Ahmed will be OK, but for his sisters, after growing to be teens in the U.S. Qatar will seem like prison.
24 Likes
They should have kept it. Maybe it would have helped them figure out what time it is.
4 Likes
we wonder why we have no skilled workers or inspiring young people
We do? I would have sworn that some of the young people I know are inspiring, and that some of the workers I know are skilled. Guess I was wrong.
6 Likes
So, after a month of wandering around lost, the police collectively slapped their foreheads and said they what time it is? Did they tire of digging through the manure looking for that pony, i.e., hidden bomb? They should be pretty red-faced with their city’s clown show.
2 Likes
The Mayor enclosed her personal wishes too.
Mayor:
“In the future, if you must carry a dangerous timepiece in public please strap it around the muzzle of an AR-15 that could not possibly be confused with a ticking time bomb and open carry it everywhere. No one in Texas would think twice about the open carrying of a timepiece in this manner.”
4 Likes
I think they are more in need of a calendar indicating what millennium we are living in.
The clock and the story behind it belong in the Smithsonian.
6 Likes
I believe the kid and his family are moving to Qatar, that great bastion of liberalism, multi-cultereism and religious tolerance. Hope they like it there. If they think the Texas police over-reacted, they will certainly love the attention to civil liberties they find in the Gulf States. Something doesn’t ring true in this whole story. I don’t claim to know what it is, but I know when I’m not getting the full story.
1 Like
He tweeted the picture of the clock to make people think it was a bomb, because the picture of the clock doesn’t serve any other purpose.
I wouldn’t say that Irving Texas has been any great shakes for Ahmed and his family. There’s nothing like being surrounded by bible thumpers who put you down at every turn, hassle you for your brown skin, and drag you to the cop station in hand cuffs because you made a damned clock. And then your family is subjected to endless abuse in the comments sections of web sites by posters and the press and media who should know better (not referencing you particularly). I’ve read several posts here at TPM where the commentor (I have one in mind and it isn’t you) is convinced Ahmed was up to something nefarious because dammit he’s a Muslim and no kid makes a damned clock to impress their teacher…
Now the family is heading to a place where nearly everyone shares their religion. I’m sure they know what to expect. And very possibly they will be welcomed into that society. I think this is a black mark on America’s vaunted religious tolerance. We say we are a tolerant society. Many times we are but sometimes we sure don’t act like it.
Qatar is no bastion of religious freedom, that’s true but then is America that much better?
7 Likes
There are women here who are “in prison.”
And a certain group of people who would love to keep it that way and expand the population.
2 Likes
Darr, I’ll back up everything you said because I think we need to open our own minds a bit right here at TPM about this family’s freedom to decide stuff for themselves. It’s quite possible that some of us, at least, simply won’t recognize that Ahmed’s father is a grownup who’s perfectly capable of making choices for reasons that seem good to him. He’s from Sudan originally, ran for president there, it seems, and may have a more nuanced view of the Arab world’s strengths and weaknesses than we do. We can cluck disapprovingly about Qatar’s disadvantages from our perspective (and by the way I’m no reflexive relativist) but one factor the father mentioned you can’t argue with: It’s fucking well OK to be an Arab and a Muslim there. The man’s children weren’t accepted and didn’t belong in Irving, Texas; he thinks they will be in Qatar and that’s why he’s taking them there. I’ll wish him well and hope we can do better here in the future here in the good old USA. Ahmed’s father isn’t the one we should be lecturing if you ask me.
6 Likes
Yep, America is much, much better. It’s not even close. We shouldn’t undersell our country; we certainly have our problems, but most of us try real hard to make diversity work. That is not the case in a single Arab (note I didn’t say Islamic) country. We’re Jewish, and where I live we have synagogues, mosques and churches all over the place. This is true all over America. There are even places in Texas where the same thing is true. So, while I think the kid was treated abominably in his school, I also know that we are living in a time of murderers and mass killings. I’ve got seven grandchildren and I want their schools to err on the side of safety, and I expect every parent to help the teachers and administrators in that effort.
1 Like
Several posters have said how bad Qatari society is and by extension all of the Muslim world. Is ours that much better? Our police shoot unarmed black people with what seems regularity. There’s a story today on TPM about a synagogue that burned…don’t know yet the cause but it could be a hate crime. Black churches in South Carolina have been torched by a serial arsonist. We have been and are still a racists society. So. who are we to criticize what a father decides to do to care for his family and children? I think we should look to ourselves… criticize ourselves first to see how we can be a better society.
3 Likes
Well, I just don’t believe the father’s story. In most of America it is plenty safe to be Muslim. There is a backstory here, and I suspect it is a money backstory.
I don’t…what I am trying to say is…we could be one hell of a lot better. Only if we really are can we take the high road. I think we have a very long way to go. I have a grandson and even tho he’s only a first grader I worry for him.
Every damned day.
I’ve seen racism up close. I know the mindset. I hate it. We have presidential contenders who clearly say that a multicultural society is a bad thing (Trump and Bush have said this) and that means they’re playing to people who believe this which tells me we aren’t as tolerant as we could be.
You must have seen the stories here on TPM about the nutjob up in Phoenix who is rabidly anti-Muslim or the anti-Mohammed cartoon fracas in Dallas. Here in Tucson I have seen anti-Muslim demonstrators in front of our local Mosques…
Have you ever been teased or abused for your faith? Ahmed sure has been as well as his sisters. And it’s not right. Right here at TPM we have a certain poster who is convinced Ahmed has gotta be a bad kid for building a “bomb look alike” and it hasta be something nefarious (in this poster’s mind) or his engineering teacher wouldn’t have told him to hide it. I certainly understand why this father wants to get his kids away from this. I have seen some incredibly hateful comments at other websites directed at Ahmed and his family. I, for one, would want to protect my kid from that
5 Likes
We could be a hell of a lot better and many of us are working towards that end. After all the Republicans die out, we’ll have a good shot at catching up with Europe on the civilization scale.
Small steps.
2 Likes