The Lesson by Toni Bambara

Although race is hardly specifically mentioned, it is the undercurrent of the story. That race is not made a point is not surprising; in Sylvia's world, everyone is African American. The only person who inhabits the exterior is Miss Moore, who actually is "black as hell." Two important ideas "that wealth and race are intrinsically linked and that white people and Africanâˆ' American people are different "are revealed in one brief sentence: when Sylvia sees a woman wearing a fur coat even though it is summer, she says "White folks crazy." Skin color is mentioned only a few other times, when Sylvia relates that Flyboy tries to get the white people at school "off his back and sorry for him" and when Rosa Giraffe reiterates Sylvia's belief that white people are crazy. By the time the children leave the store, it is clear to the reader that they believe that only white people have so much money to spend and to spend so foolishly.

By Bambara's choice of words, the reader can tell that Sylvia is extremely opinionated, presents a very tough, hostile exterior and not at all happy about having to be taught anything by Mrs. Moore. For instance, she states "we kinda hated her too, hated the way we did the winos who cluttered up our parks and pissed on our hand ball walls". She makes Sylvia angry when she says that they are poor and live in the slums. The other characters, Mercedes wants to be like the white people who shop at F. A. O. Schwarz; Flyboy seeks pity and charity as a result of his poverty and unstable home life; Sugar, Sylvia's cohort, surprisingly shows both a desire to please Miss Moore and a clearheaded understanding of the inequities of American ...