An­n­Marie Amante (Gan­ness)

As a Tri­ni liv­ing in the Unit­ed States, I would like to say that for the first time in all of my years trav­el­ling to Amer­i­ca and liv­ing here, I am afraid. Those who know me are aware that there is very lit­tle that scares me. How­ev­er, what I'm feel­ing now is a deep-root­ed fear that has to do with the un­pre­dictabil­i­ty of hu­man be­ings. These fears have been ex­ac­er­bat­ed by what I'm see­ing and ex­pe­ri­enc­ing as a re­sult of the 2016 US pres­i­den­tial elec­tions.

A few years ago, I mar­ried a very well-known opera and clas­si­cal singer from the US. Michael Amante is loved by thou­sands and re­spect­ed for his mu­si­cal prowess. Af­ter our mar­riage in 2014, I mi­grat­ed to Flori­da, which is where we live with our three chil­dren from Michael's first mar­riage. The chil­dren's moth­er was al­so In­di­an, so two of them look like I could have had them.

We are a mixed-race fam­i­ly liv­ing in the US at a time of great un­cer­tain­ty per­pet­u­at­ed by po­lit­i­cal pro­pa­gan­da that is tar­get­ing the low­est and dark­est el­e­ments of Amer­i­can so­ci­ety. Don­ald Trump and his fol­low­ers are pro­mot­ing a way of think­ing that is dan­ger­ous and fright­en­ing. I have no reser­va­tions about say­ing this be­cause it is what I be­lieve. My hus­band has cho­sen, for sev­er­al rea­sons, to not get in­volved in pol­i­tics or ex­press his views pub­licly, I re­spect that.

In­ter­est­ing, these com­ments about Don­ald Trump by spir­i­tu­al gu­ru Deep­ak Chopra in June 2016 dur­ing an in­ter­view with Fox News Ra­dio host Alan Colmes: "He is un­for­tu­nate­ly, and you know I would nev­er say this un­less I be­lieve it to be 100 per cent true, but he rep­re­sents the racist, the big­ot, the one who is prej­u­diced, the one who is full of fear and ha­tred, the one who rep­re­sents the emo­tion­al re­tar­da­tion of a three year old."

Chopra went on to say that while it is not like him to make these types of state­ments, Trump is "bring­ing out the worst in him".

I ap­plaud you Deep­ak Chopra be­cause I feel the same way and there are mil­lions who agree with you. Trump is in­deed bring­ing out the worst in many of us and it is be­cause he rep­re­sents a way of think­ing that goes against every­thing we be­lieve in as all em­brac­ing, in­clu­sive hu­man be­ings.

I have first-hand ex­pe­ri­ence of racism and prej­u­dice in the Unit­ed States. I al­so think it's time we be­come colour brave and speak out.

It's not that we don't have racism in Trinidad, of course we do! How­ev­er, this feels dif­fer­ent. I have made many friends in Amer­i­ca, won­der­ful peo­ple of all races, lots of them Cau­casian. They have em­braced me with open arms and I them.

Then there is the oth­er side. I have had ex­pe­ri­ences at my hus­band's con­certs where some peo­ple didn't want to sit next to me. Oth­ers have made deroga­to­ry com­ments about me like, "so you're telling me this what Michael Amante end­ed up with and this is who is step­moth­er to his chil­dren?" This while shak­ing their heads in dis­gust.

On more than one oc­ca­sion I was mis­tak­en for the hired help. Then this state­ment from one of his fans: "How did an is­land girl like you end up with a nice Catholic name like Ann Marie?" Very ear­ly in our courtship, a restau­rant in Flori­da just would not serve us un­til Michael in­ter­vened and de­mand­ed that they seat us.

Then came Trump. I and so many oth­ers like me have been the vic­tims of ver­bal abuse and put-downs by Trump sup­port­ers.

Guar­an­teed Hillary Clin­ton has her share of ques­tion marks but at the end of the day, I feel safer with her as pres­i­dent.

What's even scari­er are those Amer­i­cans who be­lieve that Trump is their sal­va­tion and that he will "make Amer­i­ca great again". What does this mean? Make it all white again? Go back to the days of the KKK? A place where peo­ple of colour, im­mi­grants and oth­er cul­tures are shunned and seen as out­casts? Where all re­li­gions are not re­spect­ed?

This base­less pro­pa­gan­da is what ter­ri­fies me and is what en­cour­aged me to say on FB a few days ago that if Trump wins I will be pack­ing my bags and go­ing back to Trinidad. Well! Some of my hus­band's fans, Trump sup­port­ers of course, ac­tu­al­ly said to me that I should go now and not wait for the elec­tions.

I am of the firm view that Trump is bring­ing out the un­savoury racist el­e­ments of Amer­i­can so­ci­ety and if he wins, I am tru­ly afraid to live here.

It's mere days be­fore the US pres­i­den­tial elec­tions and I'm do­ing a lot of pray­ing. God help us all if Trump be­comes pres­i­dent. I am afraid for im­mi­grants in the US and for my Caribbean broth­ers and sis­ters, es­pe­cial­ly the il­le­gal ones and those with chil­dren born here. What about my Mus­lim friends? On a larg­er scale, Trump will di­vide the world and that's even worse.