Is Shakespeare a Barometer for Class on Brewster Place?

As a Shakespeare lover (hate me, it's fine), I often take for granted how accessible it has been to me over the past 12 years of academia.  Of course, at first it was extremely difficult, and it was only after I had struggled through a number of "No Fear Shakespeare" versions of his plays that I started to enjoy them, but my point is, I've been exposed to Shakespeare so often for so long that I have taken for granted its place as a cultural and class-based status symbol.  In The Women of Brewster Place, Cora Lee is a woman arrested by the fantasies of her childhood innocence and the vacuity of soap operas to the point that she neglects her own children's development.  It is not until Kiswana finds one of Cora Lee's children eating out of a garbage and invites her to attend an all-black production of "A Midsummer's Night Dream" that she is inspired to change for her children's future and pull herself out of her self-infantilization.  In essence, Shakespeare catalyzes Cora-Lee's desire to change, but what strikes be about this shift is how Kiswana, the only woman to come from means on Brewster Place, is the one to introduce her to it.  Not only was Shakespeare previously intangible to Cora-Lee, but it was practically unheard of.  Prior to the play, Cora-Lee had rejected Shakespeare as a product of the white history that systematically marginalizes and excludes non-whites and as a part of the academic culture people of her class do not have access to.

Beyond the racial polarization of Shakespeare, the works' Elizabethan language is only palatable after significant exposure and instruction, and this kind of education is often impractical or even impossible in lower-income neighborhoods of all backgrounds.  My mom works for an organization that promotes writing and reading skills in inner-city students through publication, and she often visits English classrooms in the Bronx, Harlem, and even at Riker's Island Prison where some students are still working on their reading skills in modern English.  After teaching at an affluent public school before her current work, she often tells me how radically different the curriculums are between schools and how much further ahead the students with means are in terms of reading level.  I dont think this discrepancy should come as any shock to anyone, and in Connecticut where I live, the achievement gap between wealthy and under-served schools is actually the greatest in the country.  What I do think is significant is the fact that the prevalence of Shakespeare in a curriculum and the ability to read Shakespeare often acts as a barometer for this difference.  In this sense, I wonder if Naylor's intent in using Shakespeare was as much a symbol for class divisions and the desire for social mobility as it is a symbol of the racial reappropriation of academic culture in The Women of Brewster Place.  Thoughts?