I wonder what this woman hoped to accomplished in this discourse with him? I got to say, I genuinely enjoyed this segment with Mr. Samuels though. It’s nice to see him in conversations like this, where it is obvious he is drawing on the knowledge of his experience and education. He shows how learned he is in many ways when he is holding his own. Sometimes I listen to these shows and I just tell myself he persists with certain callers – when it is apparent they are not willing to listen – because it may be good for views. Otherwise, I do not see how he has the patience to keep listening to them beyond a certain point.
The point he made with the young lady on the same show about plumbers was equally frustrating. It could be because I’ve been married and out of the dating pool for a long time, but I didn’t know there was this apparent lack of love for tradesmen. Straight up, why would a woman look down on a plumber? Electrician? Carpenter? Farmer? A man who is straight up working with his hands. I agree with Kevin when he says men have civilized society to the point people have forgotten what
real life looks like, as in trying to stay alive day-to-day, just like every other animal. We get to turn our attention to cultivating entertainment and society niceties because we aren’t tasked with constantly worrying what we will eat or how we will stay warm. Much of the conveniences we demand and enjoy and take for granted now are still built upon a basic foundational infrastructure for life.
As I said in a previous post last year, even the man making six figures in his office job has to rely on the services of these tradesmen when life gets
real and the basic things he needs to live are lost to him – i.e. working lights, running water, operable vehicle and the like. It has crossed my mind that even with the complete fiasco that is life in certain parts of Texas right now, the men who have so-called “dirty jobs” may likely be more equipped to deal right now than many who have not; furthermore, women and children who are living under the roof with these men are benefitting from his knowledge, leadership and expertise, as a result, and I’m sure his friends and associates may be trying to reach out to him to get his take on how they can handle themselves until services are restored. Right now, a plumber (or any tradesmen) who has the hand skill to survive the mess is in a better position than someone making bank whose money means relatively nothing to him or his in this moment.
I could be wrong though.
To his point about black male teachers, I swear, the older I get, the more I realize how blessed I was as a kid. I totally took for granted having majority black teachers. Having a white teacher of any kind was out of the norm for me, and having black
men teaching us was just par for the course. My principals were black men, my ROTC teachers were black men, my drafting and electrician teachers were black men, my computer science teachers were black men, my Spanish teachers were black men and my chemistry teacher was a black man, too. Hell, even my
orchestra teacher (not band) was a black man, teaching us crazy ass kids how to play concertos and tune our stringed instruments. When I got to my HBCU, this standard of being taught by black men continued. This was a norm for many of us in the 80s and 90s in Atlanta, and it never occurred to me other kids were getting anything else
or that anything else was supposedly
better. I never considered how just having all those black men in the classroom shaped my perception of black men or my own self-esteem.
I look forward to his show about
The Black Tax and seeing what he drops there. For all the flack he gets, I think Mr. Samuels gives his audience a lot to ponder than the obvious advice for black women and relationships.