I remember where I was on 9/16 at 7:53 AM. Passing the Kentile Floors sign on the G line, marveling at my magnificent city awash in the early Monday morning mist. It was raining. But at 7:54 AM, getting that alert meant I had to change pace. At once, the buzzing sound so reminiscent of hazardous weather conditions was now deputizing subway riders, many as young as school-aged children. The train churned to a halt. In a rather Avengers-Assemble- kind-of-moment, many passengers left their seats to gaze out at the concrete towers, now eye-level, burdened with the task to protect it. I had to look down to hide the pained look on my face because daddy was right; the perpetrator would be Muslim. I had to look down because I was afraid for my cousins, friends, fellow classmates named Ahmad. Or Ahmed. Because at this point the difference between an a and an e was taking a backseat to what the Chelsea bombing would now be known as, a Muslim concoction, a terror plot. I had to look down, forced to swallow the role that was fed to me, backed against the train door, guilty. Shame on me for following such a faith. This is a point in time that will stick with all Ahmads and all the Khans and the Rahamis. With all Muslim-Americans. With all Americans. There’s an inclination to forever associate that buzzing with Islamophobia.

In a very perverted sense, everyone who had received the alert was now enlisted in the law enforcement hunt. This is freaking scary. At a time when hate crimes against Muslim Americans are up by 78%, this attempt to galvanize citizens behind the noble manhunt is liable to become a façade for the very hate crimes; NYC essentially okay-ed the attacking of traditionally clad Muslim Americans or just women and men of Arab and South Asian descent on the basis that they are a threat to national security. In those ten minutes the train stood stranded, I hurriedly texted my younger brothers, one in Boston, the other stuck on the 1 train in Manhattan. I texted daddy because he would be leaving for work and though he was meticulous about checking the car tires everyday, I wanted him to be extra careful. I called my grandmother to tell her to cancel her plans for her morning walk and stay home instead. I wanted to call my cousins and my friends and all of my Muslim brothers and sisters and I wished I could just wrap my arms around my community and hold it and protect it from all that we will face in the coming weeks, from all this hate.

Perhaps what is a greater testament to the fallibility of this already terrible plan is that it was deliberately vague. It listed the name and age of the perpetrator but that’s it. In denouncing a Muslim-American, the alert denounced all Muslim-Americans; it advised us to “see media for pics”. Except, a google search for a 28-year-old Ahmad pulled up pictures of random Ahmads, my cousin’s LinkedIn profile picture being one of them. Not only did the alert manage to wrongly invest enforcement power within the people, power which could be misused, but it also polarized that power – it was clear the Muslims were the losers in this act of redistribution.

I am glad that Ahmad Khan Rahami was caught; he deserved it. But there were alternative ways of going about this and certainly, the success of the mission cannot be attributed to NYC’s Wireless Emergency Alert system alone. There were other, more important, more defining factors. And if you disagree, well, then, if someone like Dylan Roof comes along, I hope we are granted the same measure of power to help in the manhunt.