Rosa's Lee's story reads
much like a biography going from bad to worse.
Not in the sense that it is written badly, but in the sense it's hard to
imagine how humanly, bad a person could have it. Lee's life as a mother of eight children doesn't go smooth sailing
into retirement, in fact, her golden years are down right bumpy. Lee will support her childrens' drug habit by faking
illness in order to get narcotics, she will donate blood for money, sell food
stamps (which I recently found out is called trafficking food stamps, a popular
crime that can lead to incarceration).
Lee will work on the corner; selling drugs for local drug enthusiasts,
who buy at will.
Lee's resolve in understanding that what she is doing
is downright wrong came when Leon Dash, the writer asked her if she thought it was right to ask her
granddaughter to steal clothing from a thrift store. This had a powerful effect on Lee, for which
she realizes that she is teaching her own grandkid to steal.
