Leave it to Maya Angelou to speak truth in simplicity. It's amazing the lessons learned from being marginalized/doing without. I grew up in a little suburb North of Detroit. The only suburb I was told that didn't experience white flight after the race riots of the 1960s. It was a predominantly Jewish, lower-middle class neighborhood and they worked hard to integrate everyone, poor white Christians, black children being bussed for the first time and many immigrant groups. These people taught me a lot about advocating for others.

My dad was a tenant farmer when I was very young. We weren't black but we were poor. I saw examples of this then.

When I was a teenager I worked for a delivery service in New York City. I soon discovered that rich people don't tip but poor people are generous tippers.