Ahmed’s story is frustrating on so many levels, I needed more than 140 characters to express why.

It’s hard being a teenager, entering your first year of high school. It’s striking the balance between growing up (to fit in) but staying true to who you are. Ahmed stayed true, building a gadget from scratch to impress a teacher.

But this story isn’t shocking. It’s about teachers and a principal who overreacted because they didn’t understand something. It’s about police officers who put a preconceived idea of a crime being committed ahead of actual evidence and testimony. It’s about adults in charge of kids having thoughts in their head that, although wrong, are snapped to fit around the truth to make them correct. That’s prejudice.