My 16-year-old granddaughter was adopted at the age of 21 months from Romania. My daughter rescued her from an orphanage crib and a bleak future of poverty and despair.

Because her biological parents were Roma (or Gypsies), she has a brown complexion similar to that of Muslims and Latinos. Today she is a happy, typical Maine teenager. Our family accepted her with open arms, and I am proud to be known as her grandfather. Sadly, not all her peers share our feelings.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is conducting a campaign of hate and doom. Because of the prevalent acceptance of his divisive message, there are folks who feel it is now politically correct to openly voice their prejudices.

To quote Nicholas Kristof in his Aug. 13 New York Times op-ed: “Among any nation’s most precious possessions is its social fabric, and that is what Donald Trump is rending with incendiary talk.”

Kristof notes: “Trump’s harsh rhetoric tears away the veneer of civility and betrays our national motto of ‘e pluribus unum.’ He has unleashed a beast and fed its hunger. And long after this campaign is over, we will be struggling to corral it again.”

There is a commendable movement in our schools to combat bullying of students. Trump’s example has done much to undermine this effort. Brown people, black people, Latinos, Muslims and gay people are increasingly the victims of vicious slurs that Trump and his supporters have aided and abetted.

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Pastor Chris George of Smoke Rise Baptist Church in Stone Mountain, Georgia, told Kristof: “Our faith inspires us to build bridges, not to label people as us and them, but to recognize that we’re all part of the same family.”

I pray all American families will join our family in adopting his inspirational message of love and rejecting Trump’s message of hate.

Sam Kamin

Cumberland


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