By now, you’ve read the story of Ahmed Mohamed - a boy who built a clock people knew wasn’t a bomb, but was treated as though it were a bomb because his name was Ahmed Mohammed.
Let’s all agree there was a point that everybody looked at this kid in his NASA t-shirt and realized they were over-reacting.
Then chose to make it worse.
That’s fear. And a certain type of phobia.
Of course, Ahmed was sad over this. Who wouldn’t be?
But look what happened: #IStandWithAhmed began trending and a nation of people who want kids to “create, to tinker, to build and dream” rallied behind Ahmed.
Nasa reached out. Mark Zuckerberg. The President of the United States.
Ahmed wanted to impress his teacher. Instead, he impressed others.
I like it.
I like it because it’s a happy ending to a sad story.
But I also like it because of the powerful message it sends to bad players.
That person you think won’t fight back? That you feel you have power over? Are you thinking of taking a cheap shot?
Word spreads.
And if it’s truly egregious, people are going to rally behind that person and reward him in ways that make you seethe.
The kid you didn’t like is now a famous kid and gets to do cool things with cool people because uncool people did uncool things.
Look: I think people are generally good.
But I think people who AREN’T good tend to be small, petty and jealous. And they can do a lot of damage to decent hearts.
So before that damage becomes permanent, I would like the correction to be MASSIVE.
Like it was here.
So keep tinkering. Maybe you’ll impress your teacher. And even if you don’t, maybe you’ll meet the President or the guy who created Facebook. Or get a ton of neat stuff from Microsoft.
You know who won’t see any of that stuff happen?
The person who was thoughtless and cruel.
Maybe the very possibility of that will make that small minds think twice.
