Yesterday I was doing my daily news search, scanning different news sources for important. consumable information. I was having trouble finding anything interesting since the only thing any news agency cared about at the time was either the iPhone 6, or Donald Trump's campaign for presidency; both of which I could care less about. Eventually I ran into this interesting article about a young boy. You can read it here: http://www.geekwire.com/2015/heres-what-microsoft-gave-the-teenager-who-was-arrested-for-bringing-a-homemade-clock-to-school/. The article speaks about a young 14 year-old boy named Mohammed who made a clock as a gift for his teacher.
Even though his intentions were nothing but an innocent attempt to impress his teacher, the boy faced severe consequences. You see in the eyes of authority this no ordinary child, as his name is Mohammed, which automatically translates to: Terrorist. The school Mohammed attends notified the authorities that Mohammed may have made a bomb, and suddenly the poor child's life was turned upside down. Mohammed expected a welcoming thank you from his teacher, but instead he received a trip to the local jail. There he was interrogated for hours on end, without permission from his parents (Interrogation without parental consent is illegal). We americans like to believe that we do not racially profile, and we put faith in our officials to carry out the law in the most fair way possible. Unfortunately this is not the country we live in... it never has been. Profiling based on stereotypes is as much a part of this country as the Declaration of Independence. This leads me to ask you a question: why is racism so hidden in our society? I believe that we as a society do a great job in creating a two faced system. We do a great job of burying our stereotypical beliefs deep underneath our personalties. As an outcome of this, when we are asked about racism we quickly deny any existence of it, and move on with our lives. I think that we as Americans must accept that racism is heavily prevalent in our society, so that we can work together to change it.
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