NEW YORK, United States (CMC) — As Americans vote in the presidential elections on Tuesday an overwhelming number of Caribbean community and political activists and legislators in New York are urging Caribbean nationals to cast ballots for Vice-President Kamala Harris, the daughter of retired Jamaican economist Dr Donald Harris, saying she is the better candidate to be the next president of the United States.

In what polls and pundits indicate is a deadlocked race, Harris, the Democratic Party nominee, is seeking to become the first woman of colour and Caribbean- and Asian-American to be the president of the United States as she goes up against her Republican challenger, former President Donald J Trump.

“This election day marks a turning point for our nation where Americans will make their choice about who this country stands for, and what it stands against,” Congresswoman Yvette D Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).

“It will be our moment to choose between one man’s criminality and our common decency, and between turning the page or turning back to the past. This election is centred in choice,” added the representative for the predominantly Caribbean 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, New York.

“Ours must be to elect Kamala Harris as the 47th president of the United States. For nearly a decade we’ve watched Donald Trump’s rhetoric and promises force Americans to live in fear.

“We’ve seen the pain he’s brought to immigrant communities like those of our Haitian neighbours. And, from women whose reproductive freedoms are under assault, to low-income families whose access to health care is at risk, we know the harm he represents to America’s most vulnerable groups,” said Clarke.

She says not only does Harris understand what needs to be done to protect them and forge a just path forward, she is the only candidate in the race with the capability and integrity to do so.

“On November 5th and on the long road ahead, she has my support — and I humbly ask for yours,” Clarke said.

Jamaican-born community activist in Brooklyn, Delroy Wright said as it relates to the two candidates running for election for president, it is a clear choice of who will benefit the Caribbean people most.

“Donald Trump is a racist. That is a stand-alone reason to vote for Kamala Harris,” he said, noting that, “Donald Trump is also a liar.

“Most Caribbean voters are Democrats, therefore those that vote for him will not benefit from his presidency. And if Caribbean [people] are thinking that he is better for the economy, in order to vote for him, that is a blatant misconception.

“The record shows that he inherits a strong economy from [former US President Barack ] Obama — for which he ‘tanked’ it by his mismanagement of the pandemic — and…stand[s] to inherit another strong economy again, if he wins this election.”

Wright said that the Biden/Harris economy matrix, which measures if a sitting president deserves re-election, is very good, adding, “even inflation has reached pre-pandemic levels, which means it’s at the level [at which] Trump inherit[ed] it before he tanked the economy”.

Wright said Trump is also distorting the Caribbean people’s natural conservative culture to goad them into voting for him, while his conservative culture and the Republican Party is diabolically different from the people of the Caribbean.

“Caribbean people practise virtuous conservatism embedded in godly principles — notice I did not say Christianity — while Donald Trump and the Republicans append theirs with racist elements.

“The Caribbean voters are considered to be highly educated. Caribbean voters need to exert their education in casting their vote — and, if they do, then Kamala Harris is a natural choice.”

Another Jamaican-born community activist, Irwine G Clare Sr who is the long-serving managing director of the Jamaica, Queens, New York-based Caribbean Immigrant Services, Inc (CIS), warns that if Trump wins Tuesday’s US presidential elections, “it will be mayhem for immigrants of colour in the USA.

“Speaking strictly from the perspective of a Caribbean immigrant who is a naturalised US citizen: I, too, am very concerned and anxious,” he told
CMC, adding that Trump’s “vitriolic statements and promises of mass deportation must not be taken lightly, as to do so will also cause havoc on legal immigrants as well”.