If you are not familiar with the story, Ahmed Mohamed is a 14-year old high school freshman in Dallas who designed and constructed a home-made clock, brought it to school to proudly show his teacher, and was arrested for suspicion of making a bomb. Talk about profiling — Ahmed is a Muslim who, along with his family, immigrated from Sudan.

What really makes this burn even more is the fact that the teachers, staff and police never treated the clock like it was a bomb. It was left on a teachers desk, taken to the principal, and carried by the police and transported in the same car when they took a handcuffed technology-saavy boy to the police station. After several hours, Ahmed was finally released. Police say no charges will be brought against him, however the school ultimately suspended Ahmed for three days. The police still have his clock but have told CNN that Ahmed may now pick up his property.

A lot has happened to Ahmed since then as support has come in from around the world.

Ahmed appeared on ABC’s "Good Morning America" on Thursday. Has heard from Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, Google, and Twitter. MIT has also contacted him to which Ahmed admitted, "I dream of going there." And now, George Takei has reached out to Ahmed.

George Takei

George Takei, who is Japanese-American, born in California – as was his mother – has definitely had his share of racism. In 1942 when he was 5 years old, his family along with all other Japanese-American families, were ripped out of their homes, businesses, jobs, and forced to live in internment camps in Arkansas. These families had nothing to do with the war at hand, but since they looked like the people who bombed Peal Harbor, off to these "prison camps" they went. Surrounded by barbed wire, these camps had sentry towers with the guards pointing machine guns at the people inside 24 hours per day. You can read more about Takei’s internment via this link.

Having experienced such targeted racism, via his Facebook page, Takei has written this letter to Ahmed:

Posts from Zuckerberg, Google, Twitter and President Obama

Ahmed and School
Ahmed has now changed schools, which I cannot blame him for doing so. I would, too. Keep designing and building, Ahmed, and don’t let the ignorance of the few change your course in life.

1943 – Historical photo of unidentified children at the Manzanar internment camp, California. Taken by photographer Toyo Miyatake. (AP Photo/National Park Service)

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