The cold weather
The cold weather of Washington is emphasized in this text, especially when Barbara and Cedric struggle to pay for heat. As such, this emphasizes the poverty they are living in, which has a detrimental impact on Cedric's education. Cedric says to his mother "How can I compete? It's like I'm living in a refrigerator." They had struggled to pay their bills and "when the first cool days of autumn came in 1990, both mother and son felt it. The gas had been turned off which meant... no heat." Later, the narrator describes how "a sheet of ice blankets Washington," emphasizing how cold it can get there.
Wealth
Wealth is a key aspect of the imagery of this text. When Cedric is younger, he sees wealth as the superficial display of expensive material goods. He sees people around him buying expensive cars in order to appear well-off. For example, leaders of the "gangs" often drive expensive cars, like Delante, who owns a Lexus. Cedric also sees television as a symbol of wealth, and his mother buys him one for his bedroom. The television allows him to escape his own life, and to see the wealth and prosperity of other people: "Like so many inner-city kids, Cedric knows that his notions of the distant, white world - of two-car garages and dads home for dinner- have come largely through the television, with all its vivid distortions and unintentional verities."
Ballou students
At the beginning of the text, the narrator describes the students at Ballou, calling the school an "all-black world: a fully formed, parallel universe to white America." The students have split into different groups including the bleachers, who are wearing "expensive Fila or Hilfiger or Nautica garments and $100-plus shoes, mostly Nikes." Next are the athletes, who are "local heroes at most high schools but paler characters at Ballou," and the "silent majority," of "duck-and-run adolescents: baggy panted boys and delicately coifed girls in the best outfits they can manage on a shoestring budget. They mug and smile shyly, play cards in class, tend to avoid eye contact, and whisper gossip about all the most interesting stuff going on at school." According to the narrator "academics are a low priority" at the school. As such, Suskind uses imagery to paint a vivid picture of Ballou High School, and the various types of students who attend there.
