A very big issue or conflict that has come about in the past couple of weeks, is the supposed "Homemade clock" or so they thought it was a "bomb" made by a high school student. The high school students name is Ahmed Mohamed, who went to school in Irving, Texas. There are two contrasting viewpoints after the "homemade clock" was confiscated by police. One side is that the boy intentionally brought the clock in to school to perhaps scare people or make a statement, but on the other side, he's just a very intelligent young man who wanted to show off what he could do- wanting no harm.
The first source I came across was the New York Times, who wrote there point of view more-so on the young mans side. The New York Times gave examples of the boys interest (such as NASA), or how he wants to go to M.I.T. This article also stated who reached out to Ahmed, President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and even Mark Zuckerberg; all who which congratulated Ahmed on being so talented and intelligent to make such a cool gadget from scratch. these three public figure didn't want this to turn into other young students perhaps not trying there best or feeling discouraged, all of which different media sources or reporting due to his religious beliefs. One might argue that President Obama involving himself in a situation like so was not appropriate or what he should be focusing on. The reason for President Obama responding to this could be for a couple of reasons, but none that have been spoken about by the president and/or his staff. Some might assume because he's Muslim himself, but then again that’s just allegations.
The other article I read was by CNN, who wrote more toward a general and not so biased opinion. in this article CNN stated that, "Irvin police spokesman Officer James McLellan told the station," we attempted to question the juvenile about what it was and he would simply only tell us that it was a clock"". Now this is crazy, the police department obviously doing there job and taking the proper precautions, were implying that it was a bomb. seeing that this was a statement made by the spokesman of the police department, in the statement he made it wasn’t included that they didn’t take proper precautions when they first got to the school about not putting everyone on lock down. From this point of view one might argue that it was due to his name or because he was Islamic.
All in all this topic is getting global attention. This was a juvenile who was accused of making a "bomb", which ended up being an actual "homemade clock". This is about the fact that to some extent did his race or religious views play a part in this? Or is it that he knew bringing this clock to school wasn’t a good idea, but he knew something would brew from it? These are all questions and statements that may never be answered, but one can only wonder is this was just an intelligent mind, showing off his talents; or someone who wanted to make a scare out of it.
More later,
Sharnae W(r)HITE(s)
Sources:
CNN - http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/16/us/texas-student-ahmed-muslim-clock-bomb/
NYT - http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/17/us/texas-student-is-under-police-investigation-for-building-a-clock.html?_r=0
This is a controversy we've discussed a few times in our class. Recall that this post was meant to give you the chance to compare persuasive appeals. Here, you do a nice job of summarizing the various ways this event has been interpreted by folks on different networks. I think the emergence of this story is more of an indication of the volatility of such race- or religion-based controversies. This issue, and how the media has covered it, seems to be a better example to observe ethical practice than as the subject to examine opposing arguments.
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