Race And Class Exposed In Roberta's Lesson

“Oh.’ She nodded her head and I liked the way she understood things so fast so for the moment it didn’t matter that we looked like salt and pepper standing there and that’s what other kids called us sometimes.” (210)
In this story the difference in race and class, along with the girls’ background, is evident through Twyla’s observations of her mom and the response of Roberta’s mother towards Mary when the parents come to visit one Sunday. Prior to their parents visiting, they discover that they are more alike than unalike. They realize that although their backgrounds are different they are also very similar compared to everyone else at the orphanage. Both of their parents were still living; therefore, the other kids didn’t consider them orphans. Their parents were just incapable of taking care of them, …show more content…
What is also evident is that whether they get along or not, it’s not race that sets them apart, it’s their personalities. Because they are growing up in a time when people are separated, they don’t understand why they aren’t supposed to get along. They just know what their mothers and other people have told them. Twyla says, “[t]he minute I walked in and the Big Bozo introduced us, I got sick to my stomach. It was one thing to be taken out of your own bed early in the morning—it was something else to be stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole other race.” (210) The reader can understand from this that Twyla is really uncomfortable with the fact that she has to room with a girl of a different race. She shows racism towards her roommate before even knowing anything about Roberta and immediately starts to stereotype her from the moment she saw her. In the story, Morrison gave many examples of the stereotypes that Twyla imparts on Roberta. She describes her roommate as being of “a whole other race,” (210) and states that she was part of a race that “never washed their hair and they smelled funny.”