What is Bambara's purpose in The Lesson?

The stories in Toni Cade Bambara's first collection, Gorilla, My Love, celebrate African-American culture and community, sometimes in juxtaposition against white society. Bambara challenges her characters to rethink ideas of accepted social values and norms at the same time that she challenges her readers to do the same. "The Lesson" specifically examines the realization of economic inequity in 1960s America through the eyes of a young girl.