They are taught that the n-word is shameful and bad while acting white is somewhat a higher class that they should be aiming for. This passage reminds me of a poem that I read in the past named Incident by Countee Cullen. In it is the incidents of the narrators encounters with racism and how it affected them even by an older age. This passage is similar as in the mother telling her children how to act in a certain way according to a certain ethnicity is impactful in a negative way.