On Sunday, March 3 People’s National Party vice president Damion Crawford made comments about his opponent for the seat as Member of Parliament for East Portland, Ann-Marie Vaz, that have since been decried. In essence, Mr Crawford called the race for the seat a battle of class and colour vs merit and suggested that Mrs Vaz was just a pretty face with very little potential for being anything more than a wife.

As eyebrows across the nation raised, jaws set, tongues wagged and women started to kimbo, Damion Crawford sought to double down…kind of. Since the (minor) public outrage he has quickly pointed out on social media that he’s been called a host of unflattering things over the course of his political career all without G2K or its big brother Jamaica Labour Party coming to the rescue. He has also made it known that he has nothing against Ann-Marie Vaz and in fact considers her a friend.

Now, you’ve heard as much as we have that all’s fair in love and war. And even though Crawford is usually branded as a free-thinker and all around progressive guy, even the very best of us remember trash talking our opponents and rival houses on Sports Day. It’s just what happens. So was this merely an instance of justifiable trash talking? Yes and no.

We really think that’s how it started out and that’s what he intended to do: tell everyone how great he is, extol his own virtues, and throw a little dirt on his opponent while he was at it. No biggie. The fact however remains that it all went wrong somewhere along the lines. For us, it all started going downhill when he called it as he saw it. Every leader of sorts knows that bragging and giving a play-by-play of what’s going on are matters of walking a fine line. Simply put, for many voters it may well come down to voting for class and colour over supposed merit, but it just was not his place to say as much. And certainly not so prematurely. It was boastful, it was arrogant and it might have worked against him in exposing him as the competitor that lacks actual class and merit.

Moreover, while we’re all for actual conversation on the serious far-reaching effects of classism and colourism in Jamaica, just who is Damion Crawford trying to fool? Despite his origins, just being able to attempt to save face by claiming Mrs Vaz and her husband as friends of his, seems to us to weaken the very ‘class vs merit’ argument he sought to start out with. At this point if the class gap still exists between the two, it certainly isn’t the length of the English Channel as he would have us believe.

Nevertheless, that statement taken on it’s own was a cringey but forgivable misstep. Where Mr Crawford really took a tumble was when he mentioned Ann-Marie Vaz’s looks. Let’s be frank, politicians aren’t usually famed for their good looks. But politics isn’t a beauty pageant, and political rallies (for the leaders, at least) are as far removed from Fashion Week as one can get. Maybe we’re just an old fashioned bunch of teenagers but unsolicited comments about a woman’s appearance are never ever to be given, and more importantly we don’t really care (nor should we care) what our representatives look like so long as they represent us well. Choosing to take the lazy, unimaginative way out Mr Crawford employed the faulty logic that because Mrs Vaz is reasonably pretty, she must therefore be an incompetent leader with little else to offer besides beauty. In a male dominated field such as politics, it really is damned if you’re a woman – conventionally attractive or not – and Damion Crawford proved just that by attempting to wield Mrs Vaz’s looks against her.

Just when one dares to hope he’d stuck his foot – shoe and sock included – too far into his mouth to utter another word, it manages to get even worse. Of all Damion Crawford’s remarks made about Ann-Marie Vaz on that fateful March 3, we think this is by far is the worst. Whatever one’s thoughts on marriage and long-term relationships, anyone who has tried either of them can tell you they are difficult. And in an era where marriages are on the decline, anyone who gets married and stays married for any time at all might just be a small town hero. Mr Crawford’s comment regarding Ann-Marie Vaz being fit for little more responsibility or status than that of wife comes off as not only an attack on Mrs Vaz, but also seems to drip disdain for the institution of marriage and the sacrifice and work women put into making their marriages successful.

Furthermore, it may come as a surprise to some, but women are capable of being wives and mothers while pursuing ambitions outside the home, and women that choose only to be wives or mothers are no less worthy than their working counterparts. To suggest that anyone’s identity, potential or role best played is all wrapped up in their romantic connection to another person is nothing less than gravely insulting and far exceeds acceptable ribbing or trash talk.

Considering the PNP’s choice yet again to overlook a female candidate in the battle for Member of Parliament for Portland East, one would think Damion Crawford would’ve been a little more careful with his words. We wish him better luck and better poise next time.