How Ahmed Mohamed’s experience brought me back to my childhood in Texas’ schools

When I heard about the young freshman from MacArthur High School being arrested in Irving, Texas, for bringing a clock he made to school, I felt a connection with that kindred spirit.

Now, I was never arrested in high school, but I guess the story did hit home since I grew up in Texas as a bookworm and sci-fi geek, as well, and unfortunately experienced times when instructional leaders made cultural assumptions that sometimes left me feeling marginalized.

Ahmed Mohamed, a member of his school’s robotics team, decided in the spirit of MacGyver to create a clock fashioned from a circuit board, power supply and digital display. Ahmed, like any young inventor, was excited about his creation and wanted to share it with his teachers. But instead of receiving praise and support for his efforts Ahmed was later confronted by the school principal and a police officer, arrested and taken in for interrogation.

“I built a clock to impress my teacher but when I showed it to her, she thought it was a threat to her,” Ahmed shared with reporters the day of his arrest. “It was really sad that she took the wrong impression of it.”

This is sad indeed on so many levels. As I told you earlier, I recognized a kindred spirit in young Ahmed who’s bewildered look while handcuffed behind his back sporting a NASA T-shirt drudged up distant memories. I grew up in the inner-city of Houston, Texas and was almost a casualty of profiling in the educational system. Administrators tried to classify me as learning-challenged, something that was, and still is, commonly done to black boys. My mom was a fierce advocate for me. She knew I was a voracious reader and had an advanced vocabulary that came from being a card-carrying member of the library since I could hold a book. My mother fought to get me into a magnet school where I thrived. You see I was not learning-challenged, I was simply bored with the stagnant curriculum in public schools.

Magnet schools introduced me to a diverse student body where my geeky, fanboy persona blended effortlessly with other like-minded youth. The new school was also where I began to pick up on subtle cues that for some of my teachers, mostly white, I was somewhat of a cultural anomaly. For example, a teacher once commented, “My, my, where ever did you learn all of that?” after I enthusiastically shared my knowledge of the Olympian Gods and their origins and adventures when we studied Greek mythology. The question was not so much what I knew, but how could this black boy from the ‘hood be so well versed.

Then there was the time I won first place at our school’s science fair and one teacher gave me a back-handed compliment that she was so proud of me and that I was so smart given where I grew up. You see, she was attempting to qualify my life and worth based on my neighborhood, an environment completely foreign to her.

But I think the most hurtful cultural assumption came from one of my favorite science teachers. I really loved this man and thought the world of him. One day, I was sitting at my desk and had recently checked out a book on Malcolm X from the library. My teacher walked by and asked with a very concerned look on his face, “Why are you reading about that bad man? He is evil and you should not waste your time!” I was crushed. I thought so much of my teacher that I returned the book on Malcolm X unread. I would not read about Malcolm until I got to college and was disheartened to realize my science teacher had robbed me of a important role model growing up.

I see a similar loss of innocence in young Ahmed, especially when he said he no longer will bring inventions to school. I am actually amazed Ahmed’s family has been able to raise this young Muslim kid in a way that he seems very much unaware of the filters minorities sometimes must have in place to successfully negotiate mainstream environments. Ahmed was blissfully unaware of what assumptions might be made if a young Muslim boy brought a “questionable” device to school.

But unlike back in the day, when marginalized students suffered in isolation, thanks to social media’s #IStandWithAhmed campaign and other supporters, this young inventor now has countless opportunities. In fact, while school administrators watch the clock, Ahmed will be chilling at Space Camp and the White House, so not even the sky is a limit for him now.

This article appears in Sep 23-30, 2015.