Having observed disparities, children, like anyone else, will seek to make sense of them, subconsciously if not consciously; and if they’re being told—as most everyone is in the United States—that “anyone can make it if they try hard enough,” but then they see that some have decidedly not made it to the extent others have, why should it surprise us that some (perhaps many) would conclude that there was something wrong with those at the bottom: that they were, in fact, inferior?
