I Stand With Ahmed

 Caitlin Corso, Elaina Boss, Sam Mabry, Sydney Cacioppo

ENG 3008

Professor Ames

26 September 2021

#istandwithahmed

In 2016, a boy by the name of Ahmed Mohamed entered school with a homemade alarm clock. This homemade creation was mistaken for a bomb. Bringing his project to school led him to be arrested by the police. People all over the country took to social media to voice their opinions, anger, and support. The hashtag #istandwithahmed was created for those to show support of Ahmed and encourage his dream to pursue robotics despite the newfound fear for what might result from his creations. Social media not only allowed Ahmed’s story and voice to be heard, but also revealed that the world wants to come together to call out injustice.

Twitter and Instagram are two places where #istandwithahmed spread, with most tweets and posts falling under the following categories: professional opinion, personal anecdotes, humor, religion, and support for Ahmed and his future. 

Above is the only photo of Ahmed the day he was taken by police. He is wearing a NASA shirt, reinforcing he is a student with a strong interest in science and robotics. The first round of hashtags display support of Ahmend and his love of science. 

   

    #istandwithahmed is the story of a boy and his love for robotics and science and that dream was met with backlash by a system that was supposed to be supporting him. Twitter and Instagram were, and still are, quick to point out these injustices and improve someone’s life for the better. Over the course of the research, three categories of support for Ahemd were distinguished: religious, anecdotal and humorous support. 

PROFESSIONAL OPINION

 Even former president Barack Obama Tweeted in support of Ahmed: “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great.” Obama’s message was a considerate offer to Ahmed in an attempt to make up for the accusations placed by Ahmed’s teachers and the police. The tweet reached hundreds of thousands of people, receiving over 336 thousand retweets and over 380 thousand likes. As seen here, the activism of well-known individuals is able to push messages to more people than the average person is capable of reaching.

RELIGION AND RACE

Within all the criticism for the school, Muslim Instagram users were quick to point out how Ahmed’s ethnicity and religion may have impacted how he was treated. To support him, they send their prayers and explain the daily struggles people in the Musilm community face. Posts like these demonstrate the support of the Musilm community standing with Ahmed.

One image on Instagram showed the result of fear when combined with ignorance. The post compared the situation to a chemical reaction; when fear is applied to ignorance, the result is hate. In this case, the teacher’s automatic assumption that Ahmed’s clock was a bomb brought immediate fear, which could not be subdued by Ahmed’s explanation because of their refusal to admit their ignorance. These kinds of negative feelings towards individuals who think or look differently than ourselves, combined with a refusal to accept a belief different than their own, is a major catalyst for the problem of systemic racism and religious oppression in the United States.

ANECDOTES

Beyond Instagram and Twitter, organizations like the National Center for Science Education showed their support with an article dedicated to Ahmed and a personal anecdote that can be found here. Other posts share personal feelings that came out of reading about Ahmed. On Instagram user shared strong feelings for how Ahmed was treated and that Ahmed was only an excited kid ready to share his invention. There is a shared feeling that people expressed when talking about a boy whose dreams were halted. 

HUMOR

The third, more widespread, universal way of coping with a situation such as the one that happened to Ahmed is through the use of humor. Online users, through many platforms, shared their thoughts and support through images that were meant to show the ridiculousness of what happened to Ahmed. Some people took pictures of themselves holding clocks “in various shapes and sizes”, using the clocks as symbols of their acceptance for people of all people. The clock banter was unending, filling the hashtag with pictures of various clocks, including even ovens.

CONCLUSION

Thanks to Twitter and Instagram, Ahmed received widespread recognition for the injustice he faced. His fame can be largely attributed to the #istandwithahmed hashtag. Although he has become a public figure on Twitter because of the incident, he will not allow himself to be defined by it. In fact, today he is a successful engineer who advocates for the rights of the African American community. While the social media movement was unable to fix or prevent what happened to Ahmed, it did show that the world is willing to call out injustice in order to fight against racial stigma.