can be obtained by force, it cannot be secured and maintained, especially in modern society, without the element of consent.”. (67). Omi and Winant make it clear that tactics of the past, like genocide and segregation, will not be effective, so instead white people have given minorities some say in how they are ruled to give the illusion of control. Toni Cade Bambara may have experienced feelings like this in her own childhood in segregated 1940’s Harlem and chose Sylvia, the narrator and main character of “The Lesson”, to express the beginnings of her awakening to the reality of “common sense.” Like many others, Sylvia was influenced by the television she watched, the neighborhood she lived in, the books she read, and the adults she overheard,
