If from the cradle through life the outside world brands a class as unfit for this or that work, the character of the class will come to resemble and conform to the character described.
In his autobiography, Douglass asserts that persistent societal branding of a group as unfit will inevitably lead that group to internalize and exhibit the ascribed characteristics.
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More from Frederick Douglass
No power beneath the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or a licentious people happy.
Still another ground of hope I find in the fact that colored men are strong in their gratitude to benefactors, and firm in their political convictions.
Nothing but the shot-gun or the bull-dozer’s whip can keep them from voting their convictions.