Brownies By Sherman Alexie Analysis

Culture builds up and shapes how people view the world and the people in it. It determines how we judge and view the way others act, look, and even how they think. In the texts “Where worlds collide”, “An Indian Father’s Plea”, and “Two Kinds”, it is shown that a person’s views of others and the world are solely determined by their culture.

Segregation had had many effects on the black nation, to the point that it started building up ones character, “See the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness towards white people”, King shows readers that segregation is even affecting little children, that it is starting to build up a young girls character and is contributing to the child developing hatred “bitterness” towards the white Americans. King makes readers imagine a black cloud settling in a young girls brain mentally, when instead she should have an image of a colorful blue sky with a rainbow, isn’t that suppose to be part of a 6 year-old’s imagination? King gives readers an image of destruction civil disobedience had created in the black community, especially in the young innocent little children.

These constant struggles between connection and autonomy are perhaps more palpable when Arnetta called for the brownies troop to call a secret meeting to discuss what they are going to do to get even with troop 909 for allegedly calling one of them a ‘nigger’. When Laurel showed a little hesitation, the other members looked at her like she is an impediment with Arnetta stating “Snot, you are not going to be a bitch and tell Mrs. Margolin, are you?” (Packer 9). This is just one of the situations where Laurel is faced with a tough choice where she has to weigh between her autonomy and group inclusion. Therefore, through the first-person point of view, the author clearly articulates the issue of human prejudices with particular focus on

"Brownies" is a story by ZZ Packer, who is a contemporary African American writer. The story appears in her short story collection Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, which was published in 2003. The story provides a platform that reveals the strenuous relationship between the African American and the Whites during the mid of the twentieth century. The story entails the Brownie troop of fourth grade African American girls who went to a summer camp. During their camping, they did encounter a troop of white girls in which they believe one of the White girls had addressed them in a way that insulted their race. Considering the strenuous relationship that is prevalent between the two races, the Brownie troops chose to resolve it by beating up the white girls. Through the relationship of the two troops, the strenuous nature of the Black and the White people is adequately detailed. In light of the Brownies, the paper will provide a literary research on Packer 's views and facts. Indeed, the relationship between the Black and the White people has been fraught with injustice and oppression. Based on such premise, it has been an extremely polarized relation.

ZZ Parker’s short story, Brownies, is set in the suburban area of Atlanta at an all-girls camp (Camp Crescendo). Parker chose to narrate the story through one of the girls from the all black brownies troop, Laurel, who seems to be a lot more mature than her friends. The story is not like our usual discussion of racism, instead it is reverse racism in which a group of black girls racial hate and prejudice towards a group of white girls (Brownies troop 909). Throughout the story, one of the major theme recurring is irony-contradiction between what is meant and what is said. ZZ Parker uses irony to illustrate to the reader the hypocrisy of human nature always wanting from others what

She remembers small details like how her friend only had black dolls to play with. She didn’t realize this at the time because she was so young, but she thinks that the reason why her friend’s parents weren’t too fond of her wasn’t necessarily because she was white, but because they were probably afraid of what would happen to them for associating with a white person, or if something bad had happened to her while under her supervision. Like in Mosaic, Ida B Wells discusses some of the reasons why black people were lynched. A lot of those reasons included being falsely accused of committing acts against a white person. Even if the black person did nothing and just happened to be there at the scene, they were almost always punished for it. For example, when white landowner’s wives would get pregnant and the baby ended up being of mixed race, even if it was never the black worker’s fault, they were blamed for it. This is why a lot of the times many African Americans fled from where they worked and were never to be seen again. “The daily papers last year reported a farmer’s wife in Alabama had given birth to a Negro child. When the Negro farm hand who was plowing in the field heard it he took the mule from the plow and fled… In Natchez, Mississippi, Mrs. Marshall,... [gave birth to a child who was] unmistakably dark. All were alarmed, and ‘rush of blood, strangulation’ were the conjectures, but the doctor, when asked the cause, grimly told them it was

The short story, “Brownies” is written by author, ZZ Packer. It surrounds a group of African American Brownie girls in the fourth grade who journey to a campsite situated near the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, called Camp Crescendo. On the trip, they encounter another brownie group comprised of white girls, all of who are mentally handicapped. “Brownies” is told from a first person involved point of view, through a Brownie member from the African American troop, named Laurel. Because the story takes place in the 1960’s, ZZ Packer explores issues that are prevalent in that time period, such as racial segregation and prejudice.

In “Brownies,” Z.Z. Packer illustrates the narrator, Laurel, struggling for individuality in an ethnically differentiated culture. To begin with, the author deliberately models her characters as unrighteous using wry contrast and divergence, to show her prejudicial attitude toward ethnicity. In the present aspect of the story, not one character feels righteous enough to stand against prejudice. Packer does this to emphasize the central character’s ambiguity in which the events of the story is happening.

A person has always been able to choose to what extent their cultural experiences affect their perspective. Amy Tan’s, “Two Kinds,” Bharati Mukherjee’s, “Two Ways to Belong in America,” and Robert Lake’s, “An Indian Father’s Plea,” all show how the main characters have chosen to let their experiences have an effect on their cultural identity. A person’s cultural experiences shape perception based on their own identifications and they may chose to assimilate to different cultures.

Scout’s upbringing in a family strongly rooted in personal morals inspires her to look beyond the discriminatory

Culture affects people’s perspectives of the world and others through their upbringing and how, when, and where they were raised. In the essay, “An Indian Father’s Plea,” Robert Lake writes about how his Indian child’s traditional way of learning is different from those in western education systems and that he's not a “slow” learner but learns in a different way from his peers. In the personal essay, “Two Ways to Belong in America,” Bharati Mukherjee describes her differing views of living in America with her sister, despite both being raised in India. In the poem, “My Mother Pieced Quilts,” by Teresa Palomo Acosta, Teresa how this quilt that her mother made for her involves all these pieces of her past that are stitched together. In the

Traditions and old teachings are essential to Native American culture; however growing up in the modern west creates a distance and ignorance about one’s identity. In the beginning, the narrator is in the hospital while as his father lies on his death bed, when he than encounters fellow Native Americans. One of these men talks about an elderly Indian Scholar who paradoxically discussed identity, “She had taken nostalgia as her false idol-her thin blanket-and it was murdering her” (6). The nostalgia represents the old Native American ways. The woman can’t seem to let go of the past, which in turn creates confusion for the man to why she can’t let it go because she was lecturing “…separate indigenous literary identity which was ironic considering that she was speaking English in a room full of white professors”(6). The man’s ignorance with the elderly woman’s message creates a further cultural identity struggle. Once more in the hospital, the narrator talks to another Native American man who similarly feels a divide with his culture. “The Indian world is filled with charlatan, men and women who pretend…”

In her story "Brownies," ZZ Packer uses the contrast between the girls in the two troops to illustrate the importance of gaining power through morals. The author starts her story with a description of the white girls. Packer gives a full illustration of

She based some of the Younger family’s experiences off of her own, like when the Younger family moved into an only white neighborhood and was given the opposite of hospitality. Being a colored female raised in this time period would have been very hard for her, and she shared some of

ZZ Packer’s short story “Brownies” is a of a type genre I do not particularly gravitate to when looking to read something. However, I am glad I had the opportunity to do so. In her writ-ing Ms. Packer examines an unsightly truth in society. Namely racial intolerance, indifference and misunderstanding through ignorance and conflict. Specifically she explores the topic through the experience of a summer camp outing for two Girl Scout troops of elementary school age, one African American and the other Caucasian. Skillfully, she capitalized her writer’s skill set to paint imagery to support the story, for example “The sun was setting behind the trees, and their leafy tops formed a canopy of black lace for the flame of the sun to pass through” (Packer 6). In a video interview Ms. Packer describes writing both a first and third person narrative and vice versa several times during the creation of the story that as a result helped her to deftly confronts the starkness of human nature that may never be eradicated. From the opening two sentences I was impressed this would be a different kind of read.