The Lesson

Written in vernacular from the point of view of a pre-teen inner city girl, Toni Cade Bambara's "The Lesson" speaks to the disparities between rich and poor in the free world's most powerful economy. A hord of children, most of whom sport "ghetto" monikers like Junebug, Big Butt, QT, Flyboy, Sugar, and "I," are escorted by a college-educated young black woman and descend on a very expensive toy store set in what may be New York City, judging from the toponyms: Alley Pond Park, Gentral Park, West End, Drive, F.A.O. Schwarz. The purpose of the excursion is to teach the children a lesson about the socio-economic climate they inhabit. Now, just what each child actually "learns" seems different in each case. Is the answer that Sugar gives her "teacher" compartmentalized, so that she "says-what-the-teacher-wants-to-hear" without really believing her own words? Does Rosie Giraffe really learn that "white people are crazy," and if so, what is the value of the lesson? Does the lesson breed resentment of the rich? Does it "open their eyes" to the inequalities inherent in a free-market economy? Does it "equate" happiness and material wealth, and if so, was that Ms. Moore's intention? Does Flyboy's nonchalance sum it up? Or does it foster a sense of shame and defeatism? Or does it spawn a sub-culture of "privilege" (as with Mercedes) among the underclass? Does the narrator use it to justify the fact that she stole four dollars from Ms. Moore? To become as Hobbesian or Machiavellian as those who made it rich, trying as she does to do better that her parents? Or does it inspire her to struggle to level the playing field for herself and her peers, thus giving back to her community as Ms. Moore does, and subsequently attempt to compete on equal terms with everyone else?