In earlier times, it was also there, but suppressed to the outer fringes. After all, it WAS Booker T. Washington who coined the "poverty pimps/ race hustlers" terminology, using it to warn other blacks about them.
Thought you and the rest might enjoy these from B.T.W.:
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* I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life, but by the obstacles which they have overcome while trying to succeed. Character, not circumstances, makes the man.
* Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.
* Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.
* I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.
* Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.
* There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.
* One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
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And, I couldn't help adding this good one from Ben Franklin. I have put it on the front doors of my nursery sheds:
Motivation is when your dreams put on work clothes. --- Ben Franklin
:-)