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.
Perhaps, this is why the author sets the background of the story by placing the black troops in the same camp with the intellectually impaired campers, who in fact are considered as righteous. The story “Brownies” projects two class difference; the rich and the conceded and the poor and unfortunate. Here the author uses her main character, Laurel to project the poor and unfortunate by means to form hatred and covetousness. Hatred gives Laurel inside looks and a lack of connection she feels toward the white race they are alienated from each other’s world. “When you lived in the south suburbs of Atlanta, it was easy to forget about whites.” (Packer, 4) Laurel holds the jealousy against the white girls as she sees the white as reach and conceded.
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“– invaders, Arnetta would later call them–were instantly real and memorable, with their long, shampoo-commercial hair, straight as spaghetti from the box. This alone was reason for envy and hatred.” (Packer, 5) The affirmation validates the racial differences the girls are confronting. Moreover, it is pretty evident that the girls use their emotional aversion through verbal language to cope with their frustration of cultural variances they believe people to have of them by dismaying someone as being Caucasian large-eyed breed
Despite knowing that they are "nicer, brighter," they cannot ignore "the honey voices of parents and aunts and the obedience in the eyes of [their] peers, the slippery light in the eyes of [their] teachers" when Maureen is around or the topic of conversation (74). The way Maureen dresses and behaves in front of adults is not the only way she affects Claudia and Frieda. With racist comments such as, "What do I care about her old black daddy...[and] you ugly! Black and ugly black e mos. I am cute," she infuriates the girls, for in their eyes Maureen is black too. Racist attitudes like Maureen's affect the poorer, darker blacks and can eventually lead them to think racist thoughts of their own.
"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.
In the short story “Brownies,” author ZZ Packer uses the narrator, Laurel, to explore the tensions that exist between belonging to a community and maintaining individuality. While away at camp with her brownie troop, she finds herself torn between achieving group inclusion and sustaining her own individualism. Although the events of the short story occur at Camp Crescendo, Packer is able to expand (and parallel) this struggle for identity beyond the camp’s walls and into the racially segregated society that both the girls and their families come from. Packer is exploring how an individual’s inherent need for group inclusion consequently fuels segregation and prejudice against those outside the group across various social and societal
Also, even the children of the county view the blacks as lower class. They know that they are above them, and sometimes the children act like it. Scout says during the trial, “Well, Dill, after all he’s just a Negro,” (Lee 226). This shows that even innocent Scout can just act like she’s better than Tom.
Early then goes on with his essay by describing the hardships his daughters have faced when trying out hairstyles. He appeals to the mournful emotions of the audience by describing a real life account of his daughter being made fun of at school. When his daughter Linnet got an afro style haircut one group of black girls at her school refused to play with her. She was told,”You look so ugly with that hair.” Early adapts a sad tone when Linnet describes herself as, “I don’t think I am beautiful at all. I think I am just ordinary.” Early uses an emotional appeal along with a sad tone in order to inform the nation of what many African American girls deal with. He does this to inform the reader of self-consciousness a particular “African- American” disease.
Novels are produced for a cause or purpose for the readers. The author either talks about their own experience or stories that they have learnt in life, and then they transform it into a text that we can all understand. In the text ‘Dougy’ by James Moloney, he states real life problems, inviting the readers to learn from the themes and problems that occur. James Moloney tells us that children are not born racist. There will always be critics in life and rules are there for a reason.
Brownies by ZZ Packer is a short story that takes place at a summer camp called Camp Crescendo in Atlanta, Georgia. The story follows two racially segregated troops of Brownie Girl Scouts, one troop consisting of all black girls and the other all white girls. Conflicts arise when the troop of white girls were accused of calling a black brownie a racial slur. The black troop confronted the white troop, Troop 909, with the accusation that one girl in Troop 909 called a girl in the black troop a racial slur in the camp bathroom. During this confrontation, their first face-to-face confrontation with the white girls, the black troop made the revelation that Troop 909 had special needs. A Troop Leader then shared that some of the girls in Troop
Despite the high racial tensions both characters Scout and Skeeter experience in their home areas, thy both develop their own views on racism. To start off, Scout has witnessed many immoral and racial actions and is unsure of
In this excerpt ZZ Packer clearly points out that the aversion the girls feel towards the whites is not based on their own experiences, but rather their families. According to their parents, dealing with “whites” was a problem every adult had to face. Lauren’s statement clearly exposes the young African-American girls’ lack of reasoning on racism, and thus portrays the parents as the responsible for the children’s behavior. Resentment on behalf of the parents did indeed have a huge impact in the brownies.
In the short story “Brownies” by ZZ Packer there are a few different settings throughout the story. The use of multiple settings serve as a purpose to establish the mood of the story, and give the reader better insight to the characters and the theme of “Brownies,” racism. The conflict of Arnetta claiming that one of the girls from Troop 909 called Daphne the n word is tied in with the theme of story, and the setting of where Laurel, the narrator lives, the type of school her and the rest of her troops go to, the time period they live, and the bathroom at the camp all work as a part of the story in order to help give the audience a deeper understanding of the conflict and theme of “Brownies.”
Another, aspect of white supremacy is the standards of beauty, which tends to follow Anglo Saxon notion of beauty white skin, thin, blonde hair, and small lips. Assata points this out in her childhood moments that put forward societies views on being back in America. She recalls a moment in the playground children would fight with one another and call each other names for instance “big blubber lips, jungle bunnies, and if the children wanted to make the insult worse the would add the black in front of the word for example, back bastard. Even Assata would insult her sister for having big lips. Furthermore, it is not until she starts to run away her home and is exposed to the cruelties of the world for example, stealing, working at a bar,
In the story, the two troops (the white troop 909 and the black troop brownie) were elementary schooled kids who had racial problem against each other. The girls went to a segregated school so they didn't know anything about each other. They were influence their surrounding, I say this because your not born racist, it's taught. Racism has always been an issue. An example of a racist comment in the story was when the white girl called the black girl the n-word. As a child in elementary school she probably doesn't even know how to spell , she probably heard it from her parts To me racism is like a trend that’s pass down from generation to generation.
The purpose of this project was to show the effect on boxed brownie mix when key ingredients are subtracted. Changes in texture, taste, and color occurred. This experiment exposed the reason why water, eggs, and oil are necessary in boxed brownie mix. Water keeps the brownies moist and soft in texture. Eggs act as an adhesive that prevents the brownies from crumbling. Oil also holds the brownies together and locks in the moisture.Five boxes of brownies were baked on the experiment day: original, eggless, waterless, oil-less, and a final batch baked 100 degrees cooler. The original brownies turned out as expected: chocolatey, moist, and delicious (according to taste testers). The eggless batch was crumbly and overly moist. The waterless brownies retained their chocolatey
She does not empathize with the other girls in her own troop, particularly the girls who are most vulnerable or least likable, often treating them as insignificant. For example, she calls Laurel “Snot,” while she tells Janice to “shut up” and disregards her suggestions as if they have no merit at all. Arnetta does not connect how she feels about discrimination and to how the other girls feel about bullying. Though Arnetta feels victimized by society, she takes advantage of those weaker than herself; she doesn’t feel empathy for them. However, there’s a clear difference in the way Arnetta picks on the white girls and girls of her own troop. While Arnetta picks on the girls of Troop 909 because she assumes they might be racist, she picks on the girls of her own troop to become more powerful within the group. Nevertheless, she understands what discrimination feels like and she continues to make other girls feel less
W.E.B. Du Bois was one of the many African Americans who struggled through a life of inequality. He fought against this lack of equality, but it was not fully accepted until much past his time. Today, African Americans are considered equal, have the right to vote and are full citizens of the United States, however, during Du Bois’ era, whites were appalled at the thought of being treated equal with “something not human”. Du Bois fought for blacks’ rights as “co-workers in the kingdom of culture” and the importance of recognizing the color line the whites refused to pardon with. This color line has influenced the mindsets of the African Americans and established the idea of double consciousness; they must act as if they fit in, even though they know they don’t, to appear more valuable and accepted by society. The Brownies’ Book includes children’s stories, such as “The Boy’s Answer”, “The Jury” and “Gyp: A Fairy Story”, that all heavily portray the double consciousness that minorities had to learn and use in their everyday encounters because of the color line.