Race, Identity, and Social Division Theme Analysis

Toni Cade Bambara’s “The Lesson” takes place in New York City sometime in the mid-20th century. The narrator, Sylvia, is a young Black girl whose family moved to Harlem from the South, where it’s likely that they lived under Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation. And although segregation was never legally mandated in northern states like New York, race is still a point of conflict in the story, reflecting the overall atmosphere of racial tension in the U.S. at this time. For instance, Sylvia resents her neighbor Miss Moore (who is Black) because Miss Moore wears her hair in a natural style, but also because she has a college education and uses what Sylvia calls “proper speech” rather than the African American Vernacular English (AAVE) dialect that Sylvia and her peers speak. Moreover, there’s a clear divide in the story between Black people and white people, as the white people whom Sylvia and the other Black characters encounter never speak during the story and are portrayed as alien and distant from the Black characters’ lives. Through these details, the story shows that the way people present their racial identity can create tension and resentment, even among people of the same race. Furthermore, it suggests that even in places where segregation isn’t enforced, racism can still divide people from one another.

When Miss Moore moves into Sylvia’s neighborhood, Sylvia and the other Black people in the community see Miss Moore as an outsider because of how she presents her racial identity, even though she is also Black. Miss Moore has several qualities that make her stand out: she speaks “proper” English rather than AAVE, has a college education, dresses formally, and goes by Miss Moore rather than just her first name. Sylvia—along with the other kids and even the adults in the community—find all of these things alien. And given the way that Sylvia lists these qualities just before noting that Miss Moore has very dark skin, it’s implied that they find Miss Moore strange specifically because she doesn’t fit the stereotype of how they expect a Black woman to behave. Alongside this, Miss Moore embodies Blackness in a way that the other members of the community don’t: namely, she wears her hair naturally, in a style that Sylvia describes as “nappy.” This derogatory, racially charged term suggests that Sylvia (and perhaps others in the neighborhood) have a contradictory view of how Black people are supposed to look and act: they shouldn’t use “proper speech” that’s stereotypically associated with white people, but they also shouldn’t be proud of their Blackness and embrace their natural features. From this, it’s clear that the community doesn’t really know what to make of Miss Moore, whose way of presenting her racial identity is very different from the other Black people in Sylvia’s neighborhood. The adults talk about her behind her back, and Sylvia resents Miss Moore’s college degree and mocks her appearance and way of speaking. The other characters’ reactions thus show how differences in the way people think about and present racial identity can cause tension, even among people of the same race.

White people, meanwhile, are presented as wholly alien to the Black characters. Notably, there are no white characters in the story, and the few white people mentioned are portrayed almost as exotic. This is particularly evident when Miss Moore takes the kids on a field trip to Midtown Manhattan (an affluent and predominately white part of New York City): she welcomes them to the neighborhood “in the voice she uses at the museum,” emphasizing the surrounding white people’s otherness relative to the main group. Sylvia finds white people strange, noticing one white woman on Fifth Avenue wearing a fur coat in the middle of the summer. Both Sylvia and later Rosie Giraffe comment that white people are “crazy.” In presenting white people as outsiders or others, the story subverts the trope of white writers exoticizing other races and offers a reversal of the usual perspective, which still suggests that there’s an unspoken but evident racial divide between white and black people in the city.

Furthermore, the Black children’s discomfort in predominately white spaces suggests that the New York City of the story feels racially segregated, even though segregation isn’t legally mandated. Midway through the story, Sylvia and Sugar are confronted with the idea of entering the upscale toy store FAO Schwarz, a space that seems associated with whiteness because of its location in a wealthy white neighborhood. But the girls are too timid and ashamed to enter until Mercedes shoves them inside the store, emotions that Sylvia likens to the feeling of entering a Catholic church, another traditionally white space. Even after the kids enter FAO Schwarz, they’re nervous and overly cautious about touching the toys, a feeling that is unfamiliar for the usually outspoken Sylvia. Together, the Black characters’ feelings of unbelonging and inferiority suggest that although New York City was not legally segregated like the Jim Crow South at this time, Black people still felt excluded from predominately white neighborhoods and establishments. As a whole, then, “The Lesson” shows that even in an ostensibly equal and racially integrated society, race can still divide people.