Mama tells Cassie, “Baby, we have no choice of what color we’re born or who our parents are or whether we’re rich or poor. What we do have is some choice over what we make of our lives once we’re here.” What do you think she means by this?

I thinks she means that we can’t control our background, who are parents are, or how much money we obtain. What we can control are the choices that we make throughout our life.

Explanation:

The overall moral is, we control our path and our destiny.

she meant even though we have a skin tone  is or  if you are rich you still have a life and you can make a difference with it.

Explanation:

the sentence does not violate the phrase structure second rule (introduced by noam chomsky) because noun phrases consist of a determiner such as a, the or every, and a noun. in the sentence, the noun phrase the cake includes a determiner (the) and a noun (cake).

on the other hand, the first rule indicates that a sentence encloses a noun phrase, followed by a verb phrase. the example sentence can be analysed as follows:

john (n) + ate (v) + the (det) + cake (n).