The sharecropper may lower his eyes, but not because he's less of a man. That's just a condition of society that such things exist.
“We are given to the cult of personality; when things go badly we look to some messiah to save us. If by chance we think we have found one, it will not be long before we destroy him.”
“I have seen one shrike occupy himself for hours in sticking up on thorns, a number of small fishes that the fishermen had thrown on the shore. The fishes dried up and decayed.”