MD Ahnaf Hossain came from Bangladesh to Jamaica, Queens when he was one. His father drove a cab; his mother worked in the schools. He grew up on a block of Jews, Muslims, Haitians, Pakistanis, and Bengalis, which is to say he grew up in New York.
So when the Knicks took Game 1 and someone pointed a camera at him, the whole city came out in a single breath. The mayor really is Muslim. The bagels really are Jewish. The Christian Dior was a nod to Pop Smoke, his favorite rapper. None of it was a script. “I just had to bring everyone together,” he said.
By morning it had run the length of every train line. The reaction he keeps coming back to is his mother’s, an immigrant herself. “The message you’re sending,” she told him, “is really beautiful.”
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MD Ahnaf Hossain
The New Yorker who said the four lines, now behind the shirt. Follow along, and read his story:
“That guy dropped bars.”
Shekar Krishnan, Queens City Councilmember, onstage at Governors Ball
“I grew up with Jews, Muslims, Haitians, Pakistanis, Bengalis. I just had to bring everyone together.