They are careless because they have not found that it pays to be careful; they are improvident because the improvident ones of their acquaintance get on about as well as the provident.
This passage offers a sociological explanation for the perceived carelessness and improvidence of Black laborers, linking it to a lack of tangible rewards for diligence.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
Through history, the powers of single black men flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.
The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.
A million black men started with renewed zeal to vote themselves into the kingdom.
But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them.