The Lesson--It's a Sad One

This comes from “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara, a story that one of my refugee students had to read and analyze:

Then Sugar surprises me by sayin, "You know, Miss Moore, I don't think all of us here put together eat in a year what that sailboat costs." And Miss Moore lights up like somebody goosed her. "And?" she say, urging Sugar on. Only I'm standin on her foot so she don't continue.

"Imagine for a minute what kind of society it is in which some people can spend on a toy what it would cost to feed a family of six or seven. What do you think?"

"I think," say Sugar pushing me off her feet like she never done before cause I whip her ass in a minute, "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?" (Here’s a teacher’s essay about the story)

The lesson of “The Lesson” seems to be socialism, equal outcomes as opposed to equal opportunity. It puts in the mouths of supposed street kids ideas that I doubt you’d often hear from street kids. Using this story in a high school literature class encourages teenagers, often lacking an understanding of how capitalism or socialism really work or how they relate to freedom, to disparage the system which provides the opportunities they enjoy.

The author fills her story with implications. Here’s one example: “So we heading down the street and she's boring us silly about what things cost and what our parents make and how much goes for rent and how money ain't divided up right in this country.” She implies that someone “divides up” the money so that some get a lot and others, not much. A child might draw such a conclusion, but an adult author or teacher should know better.

In another place, she writes, “(P)oor people have to wake up and demand their share of the pie.” That’s another classic bit of socialism, without rebuttal or balancing explanation. I grew up in a relatively low income family. I have always been aware of a vast range of incomes and prices for things. If that’s all one considers, then we overlook some important aspects of how people create jobs and income. People make expensive toys; that’s jobs and income. Workers build yachts and mansions, and they wouldn’t have jobs if rich people didn’t buy them. There is no “pie” to divide. Instead, millions of people, in a country like the United States, invest their wealth, invent things, build factories, employ people, and keep money in circulation.

The story’s language is crude in grammar and vulgar in content. The most important need of poor children is education, but stories like this glorify ignorance. Miss Moore, the only adult character, “had been to college and said it was only right that she should take responsibility for the young ones' education.” However, her education seems to be clever manipulation. When the story-teller becomes angry, it’s clear that Miss Moore is pleased:

We just stare at that price tag. Then Sugar run a finger over the whole boat. And I'm jealous and want to hit her. Maybe not her, but I sure want to punch somebody in the mouth.

"Watcha bring us here for, Miss Moore?"

"You sound angry, Sylvia. Are you mad about something?" Givin me one of them grins like she tellin a grown-up joke that never turns out to be funny.

Making the children angry at perceived injustice won’t help them out of poverty. Envy, anger, and resentment simply alienate people with little constructive benefit. Socialistic ideas don’t work. Robbing producers of the rewards of their creativity and labor to “share” with those who do not produce is like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs; if the producers stop producing, as they surely do when government takes their earnings, then the “pie” shrinks, and everyone suffers. That should be the lesson, a lesson easily learned from the former Soviet Union, which now, under a capitalist economy, is having a boom in millionaires.

The United States has made considerable progress toward enabling more and more people to gain access to opportunity and jobs, but many still want to turn us into a socialist nation. Those with a vested interest in anger and resentment continue to tell people that somebody is keeping them poor, that they are victims, and that only they, their wise and benevolent leaders, can get them a “piece of the pie.” If they listen, the leaders get wealth and power, and their followers wait…for nothing! That’s the real lesson, and it isn’t a happy one.

Yet, there is another lesson to be learned, one regarding education. What kind of an education do kids like those in the story get today? In the decades since Bambara wrote “The Lesson,” the investment in education has increased by millions of dollars. Has the quality of inner city education shown a corresponding improvement? Thanks to those promoting resentment and anger, many inner city children resist learning as some sort of racist imposition. The education establishment plays along, calling street slang “Ebonics,”, as if it were a language all its own, rather than simply poor English. While on one side, immigrants receive little encouragement or help in learning English, on the other side, native-born black Americans, with little authentic connection to Africa, are encouraged to drift off into their own subculture. In both cases, the result is to be trapped in ignorance and left unable to earn the benefits of American liberty, opportunity, and prosperity. That’s another sad lesson, compliments of those who promise hope but fail to deliver.