Jamaica is one very peculiar place, and every so often, something will occur that will stir the uncomfortable mess that boils just below the surface of the social landscape.

This week, former Miss Jamaica Universe, Yendi Phillipps, announced that she was expecting her first child. With the announcement she also revealed that Daniel 'Chino' McGregor is the father of the child. Anywhere else in the world, John Public would have acknowledged receipt of the information, offered a few cursory congratulatory messages, and we would all move on. However, what happened next was not only surprising but, at least to me, very disturbing.

A lot of people have commented publicly and privately about why Yendi should not have done it this way, why she should have got married first as she is a role model, and why she should have chosen someone else to be the father of her child. One commentator even said that behavior such as Yendi's is what has led to Jamaica's moral decay. All of a sudden, Yendi is the cause of all our ills. Absolutely ridiculous!

What all of these negative comments are telling me is that we really have not got away from the vestiges of slavery that seem to continue to underpin the general thinking of Jamaican society - at least some of us haven't. The negative comments say to me that the problem is not that Yendi is pregnant, it's who the father of the child is.

Chino is a dancehall artiste who is very dark-skinned, and that right there is what is rubbing people the wrong way. What it says is that we might be 'out of many one people', but to many of us, that is not the way it should be. In other words, many of us are still racist and classist.

I am willing to bet my last dollar that had Yendi been pregnant for a lighter-skinned entertainer like, say, Sean Paul or Shaggy, or someone like her former beau, former 100-metre world record holder Asafa Powell, you wouldn't hear a peep out of the same people who are so hot under the collar now. Yes, I know Asafa is not light-skinned, but he is light enough and wealthy enough.

These same hypocrites are the ones who are chatting absolute rubbish - thar the affable former beauty queen having a child out of wedlock is not the example she should be setting and that it speaks to society's moral decay. I would love to ask these people, What exactly is your definition of marriage?

If you really believe that the little ritual that you go through at church makes you married, guess again. The marriage ceremony is a little thing dictated to by society to formalise a relationship between a man and a woman. Remember, at one time people could get married by holding hands and jumping over a broom. There are people out there living together for decades who have never had a formal ceremony who are loyal to each other and share wonderful lives together. Marriage is living by example, not a piece of paper from the Registrar General's Department. This is why so many people are divorced these days - because their concept of marriage is as far from reality as the east is from the west.

Yendi and Chino are obviously in love - based on what they said in that video on YouTube. That they feel like they have known each other for much longer than they actually do, speaks volumes. Those of us who are truly in love will understand that.

But besides the hypocrisy, there are some people - men especially - who are just upset that Yendi is off the market and that she is pregnant. And that is just 'bad mind' - pure and simple.

I have heard people say that Yendi and Chino should have been prepared for the backlash because they put the information out there. My response to that is this. Yes, they put it out there, but my late grandmother told me something once that has proven to be sound advice: sometimes if you have nothing good to say, just keep your damn mouth shut!

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