Exploring “The Lesson” and Oppression

Lillian Smith

December, 2020

Exploring “The Lesson” and Oppression

In Toni Cade Bambara’s story, “The Lesson”, Sylvia, her cousin Sugar, and some of the other local children are taken on a field trip by their college educated neighbor, Miss Moore. The narrative is coming from Sylvia’s point of view, who along with the other children, grew up in the slums of Harlem. When Miss Moore moved to the neighborhood, she took it upon herself to educate them. On this specific outing, she wanted to show the children a world outside of the oppressed community where they live. She wanted to teach them about the inequality that exists and help them realize that such a society doesn’t have to determine the rest of their lives if they work hard and get an education. In Martin Luther King’s essay, “The Three Ways of Meeting Oppression”, he writes that people react to oppression differently; through acquiescence, violence, and nonresistant violence. In this paper, I will be exploring each of these responses that MLK writes about which are exhibited throughout “The Lesson” by the characters and the oppressive circumstances in which they live.

The first reaction King wrote about was acquiescence, a reluctant acceptance to an oppressing situation. As he states in his essay, those who are acquiescent “tacitly adjust themselves to oppression, and thereby become conditioned to it.“ One moment in which this appears in the story was when Miss Moore was telling the children about the cost of living and how “money ain’t divided up right in this country”. Sylvia disagreed, however; “And then she gets to the part about we all poor and live in the slums which I don’t feature.” Her reaction showed an acceptance to the life she was living in the slums, because it’s the only life she’s ever known.

Since most of the children have only ever lived in poverty, they’ve missed out on life experiences that a bigger income could provide. Even something as small as a taxi ride. This is evident when Miss Moore sent Sylvia and half of the kids off in one of the two taxis she hailed, giving Sylvia  five dollars to pay the driver. During the ride, they were ”fascinated with the meter ticking and Junebug starts laying bets as to how much it’ll read when Flyboy can’t hold his breath no more.” Their intrigue implies that this was a rare event. As the taxi came to a stop, Sylvia was very focused on figuring out how much to tip the driver, which shows she hasn’t had much experience in calculating tips before. “Then the driver tells us to get the hell out cause we there already. And the meter reads eighty-five cents. And I’m stalling to figure out the tip.”

There are also several other instances that show the oppressiveness of their financial circumstances. When the children saw how expensive the unfamiliar items are in the shops, and Miss Moore asked them how long it would take to save up for a $300 microscope, Sylvia and Sugar replied with; “’Too long,’ I say. ‘Yeh,’ adds Sugar, ‘outgrown it by that time.’” They had a similar reaction when they came across an expensive paperweight: “My eyes tell me it’s a chunk of glass cracked with something heavy, and different-color inks dripped into the splits, then the whole thing put into a oven or something. But for $480 it don’t make sense.” Although the children understood the value of money, they were acquiescent to the idea that items such as those will never be in their price range.

Not only do those prior examples show wealth inequality, but they hint at an educational inequality as well. Both the microscope and the bookends were items that were unfamiliar to most of the children: “’So what’s a paperweight?’ asks Rosie Giraffe. ‘To weigh paper with, dumbbell,’ say Flyboy, the wise man from the East.” Miss Moore explained the purposes of each, and when describing the bookends, she said, “It’s to weigh paper down so it won’t scatter and make your desk untidy.“ But some of the students claimed they didn’t have a desk. “’I don’t even have a desk,’ say Junebug. ‘Do we?’ ‘No. And I don’t get no homework neither,’ says Big Butt.” The latter certainly indicates an academic inequality.

Referring back the children looking in the storefronts, namely FAO Schwarz, there was one toy that really rattled their acquiescence, a $1,195 sailboat. They couldn’t believe the price, especially Sylvia. “Who’d pay all that when you can buy a sailboat set for a quarter at Pop’s, a tube of glue for a dime, and a ball of string for eight cents?” By bringing the children to the upper-class store with the thousand-dollar toy boat, Miss Moore gave them a direct comparison to the 25-cent version that they’re familiar with, both of which would probably bring them the same amount of enjoyment. Allowing them to see this gave way to inwardly questioning and gaining a better grasp on the systematic inequality in society. “Who are these people that spend that much for performing clowns and $1000 for toy sailboats? What kinda work they do and how they live and how come we ain’t in on it?”

After the field trip, Miss Moore asked the children what they thought of FAO Schwarz, and Sugar said, “I don’t think all of us here put together eat in a year what that sailboat costs.” She added that “this is not much of a democracy if you ask me. Equal chance to pursue happiness means an equal crack at the dough, don’t it?” Miss Moore was delighted at Sugars realization, as “The Lesson” she was trying to teach them was that with hard work and an education they would be able to afford such things. Why be acquiescent when you can take action to make a difference in your life.

When it comes to having a violent response towards oppression, Martin Luther King, Jr. stated in his essay that violence “is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all” and it “is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love.” One example of this type of reaction in “The Lesson” was how the homeless alcoholics, who lived in the ghetto, reacted that way to oppression and poverty by vandalizing public property: “the winos who cluttered up our parks and pissed on our handball walls and stank up our hallways and stairs so you couldn’t halfway play hide-and-seek without a goddamn gas mask.” On top of that, Sylvia stated how she hates them for doing such a thing. The choice made by the winos to act in such a way fails to help others feel compassion. As MLK said, violence “seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding.”

Another instance of a violent reaction was when Miss Moore was asking the children questions: Sylvia was bored and began to feel that she would much rather “snatch Sugar and go to the Sunset and terrorize the West Indian kids and take their hair ribbons and their money too.” She probably saw those kids as being in another racial group with a different culture and accent. However, that is no way to treat people simply because of their class or race. How could one possibly build up a community when hatred and violence not only “solves no social problem”, but “destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible”, as said by King in his essay. “Violence is not the way.”

Last but not least is the nonviolent resistant reaction, where one aims to resolve conflicts morally and justly, standing up for what they believe in, and trying to make a difference. This was often displayed in Miss Moore character as well as in what she was trying to teach. Moore was courageous as she did things her own way, even when others would make fun of her for it, just like Sylvia and Sugar did; “this lady moved on our block with nappy hair (natural hair) and proper speech and no makeup. And quite naturally we laughed at her,” They also said she’s “The only woman on the block with no first name. And she was black as hell, cept for her feet, which were fish-white and spooky.” Miss Moore showed a nonviolent resistance in the way that she didn’t conform to society’s view of what black women should look like. As said by Martin Luther King, Jr., one “cannot win the respect of his oppressor by acquiescing”, and that “With nonviolent resistance, no individual or group need submit to any wrong, nor need anyone resort to violence in order to right a wrong.” Miss Moore is a great example of this, as she does not cower, nor does she physically try to harm the girls for treating her that way.

As I mentioned above, nonviolent resistors stand up for what they believe in and try to make a difference in their lives or the lives of those around them. Miss Moore was trying to open up the eyes of the children to the fact that they could make a difference in their own lives, despite the society and inequalities they faced, and learning was the first step. During the field trip, the children began absorbing knowledge she was sharing with them, whether they wanted to or not. When she was describing the microscope to them, Sylvia didn’t pay much attention, since Miss Moore was simply “gabbing about the thousands of bacteria in a drop of water and the somethinorother in a speck of blood and the million and one living things in the air around us is invisible to the naked eye.” Although Sylvia didn’t want Moore to think she had any interest, it’s apparent that she remembered that information quite clearly.

The bits of wisdom their teacher shared throughout the trip started soaking in, especially for Sylvia and Sugar, when Miss Moore told the children to go in the store and research more about the costly toy boat. The two girls hesitated at the entrance. They felt abashed, as if they didn’t belong. It seemed too high class, not for those who live in poverty. “Not that I’m scared, what’s there to be afraid of, just a toy store. But I feel funny, shame. But what I got to be shamed about?” It’s easy to see here how Miss Moore’s words are starting to impact them, as they’re becoming more aware of the inequalities in the world. “Where we are is who we are, Miss Moore always pointin out. But it don’t necessarily have to be that way, she always adds then waits for somebody to say that poor people have to wake up and demand their share of the pie and don’t none of us know what kind of pie she talking about in the first damn place.” She wanted them to know that they can demand their share of the pie, the bigger world outside of poverty and systematic racism, if they work for it. By guiding those children to figure out that they can make a difference, she, the nonviolent resister, is also making a difference.

Ultimately, there were several reactions to oppression in “The Lesson”, in both the characters and in their lives, and each response often ended up with a different outcome: With acquiescence came a reluctant acceptance and cooperation of systematic inequality; If nothing is done to stop the system, nothing will change. With violence came a lack of compassion and community, as hate only causes destruction in the end. But with nonviolent resistance, one could find a middle ground, a balance between the two ways, to make progress towards their goals. To quote MLK one final time, “the principle of nonviolent resistance seeks to reconcile the truths of two opposites-acquiescence and violence-while avoiding the extremes and immoralities of both.”