Jamaicans in the US are devastated following Kamala Harris’ defeat in the presidential election

NEW YORK, United States – Jamaican Americans here who had hoped to see someone of their heritage ascend to the presidency of the United States have been left “disappointed, devastated and shocked” by former President Donald Trump’s defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris at Tuesday’s elections.

Many have already begun to seriously investigate the unexpected outcome in which Harris, a daughter of a Jamaican father, lost all seven battleground states where US elections are lost or won.

“I really believe this country is just not ready to elect a woman as president,” Florida-based retired real estate agent Juliet Mattadeen told the newspaper. Jamaican observer.

Her sadness was shared by many of those who gave their views on the outcome in interviews with this newspaper.

“I am completely shocked; it’s like I’m in another world,” said Hyacinth Davis, a retired teacher from Georgia, who also attributed Harris’ gender as the main reason for her loss.

Retired New York health worker and founder and president of the Ex-Correctional Officers Association of Jamaica, Keith Smellie, said he was “deeply disappointed and devastated” by the results, which he described as “certainly not what I expected.”

He added that he believed the former president was “able to effectively use the state of the economy and the border issue (immigration) against the vice president.”

In Maryland, Rick Nugent, head of the Jamaica Association of Maryland, said that “while the outcome is not what I would have preferred, this is a democracy and we must accept the results.”

He attributed her defeat to billionaire Elon Musk’s involvement in the critical state of Pennsylvania, along with her gender and sexism.

The election results were a particularly bitter pill for Stafford Grant, head of the Jamaica Ex-Servicemen and Women Foundation. Grant, who lives in Pennsylvania, said he was “completely shocked.”

“It (result) does not reflect what we saw on the ground leading up to and during yesterday’s (Tuesday) turnout,” said Grant, who was among the Jamaican and Caribbean nationals who formed Caribbean Americans United in support of Harris shortly after they became her party’s presumptive candidate in July.

He is concerned about some of the policies the former president has advocated implementing because he believes they will be harmful, especially to Jamaicans and other Caribbean people.

“We will now have to remain more focused and use the laws where and when necessary to protect ourselves,” he argued. Sadie Campbell, former president of the Jamaica Progressive League, said that while she is deeply disappointed and the outcome is not what she was looking for, “there were signs that things would end up the way they are.”

She believes the Harris campaign “should have focused more on what the Biden administration did for the economy, which was reeling due to COVID when they came into power. She said she was “also disappointed that many Jamaicans appear to have voted for the former president only because Harris is a woman.”

Commenting on the election results, California-based Roy B Davidson, chairman of the Caribbean Cricket Club of Los Angeles Inc, said: “The loss of the election by the Vice President is very disappointing. I think she has been undone by the state of the economy, and I also believe her late start as head of the ticket has not served her well.

Davidson added that he was proud of the campaign she ran and that she should be commended for doing extremely well, a sentiment shared by Grant.

For Carlene McIntosh, “the loss of Harris is difficult to accept. I just feel like she was held to a higher standard than if it were a man under similar circumstances,” the Long Island, New York hospital secretary told the Observer.

At least one member of the Jamaican community in The Bronx, who asked not to be named, said he welcomed Trump’s victory because he believes his policies would be better for the economy and would solve the border problem.

He also thought the Biden-Harris administration was too soft on crime.