Cataloguing yesterday the list of Ahmed Mohamed–related oddities, I missed this one, reported by the Daily Beast’s Randy Potts last week:
[Ahmed’s oldest sister] Eyman and I sit down in the hallway where she says the same thing happened to her as Ahmed.
“I got suspended from school for three days from this stupid same district, from this girl saying I wanted to blow up the school, something I had nothing to do with.”
Eyman talks with the slightest lisp, almost imperceptible, but it becomes stronger as she gets emotional.
“I got suspended and I didn’t do anything about it and so when I heard about Ahmed, I was so mad because it happened to me and I didn’t get to stand up, so I’m making sure he’s standing up because it’s not right. So I’m not jealous, I’m kinda like—it’s like he’s standing for me.”
Eyman said her suspension was in her first year of middle school, “my first year of attempting middle school in America. I knew English, but the culture was different, the people were different.”
Whether or not this happened we’ll probably never know. This is the sort of record that is under lock and key; we’ll never see Eyman Mohamed’s “permanent record” unless she or her legal guardian chooses to release it. But if the suspension did happen, it could explain the bizarre ventriloquism routine Mark Cuban reported.
And, of course, there is the obvious point: Two siblings from the same family being falsely accused of “bomb”-related offenses is, well, quite a coincidence . . .