In W.E.B. Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folks, I read the essay, "Of the Meaning of Progress," in which Dr. Du Bois told stories about his childhood. To read it, click here. Something on page 50 stood out to me:
"The mass of those to whom slavery was a dim recollection of childhood found the world a puzzling thing: it asked little of them, and they answered with little, and yet it ridiculed their offering. Such a paradox they could not understand, and therefore sank into listless indifference, or shiftlessness, or reckless bravado."