`` Brownies `` By Zz Packer

In the story, Scout if affected by racism and prejudice at her school, and around town. At school, she is picked on by a town boy called Cecil Jacobs for her father doing his job in

Cullen is hopeful to get to a place where people of different races will be able to look at others without prejudice and discrimination. However, the poem “Incident” is of a less positive tone. She expresses her experience in a shocked manner, saying, a boy stuck his “tongue out and, called, [her] ‘Nigger’,” (Cullen 8). She was so shocked that “From May until December; .../… of all the things that happened... /… that’s all [she could remember” in Baltimore (Cullen 10-12). At the young age that she was at, it is surprising and upsetting to her to be discriminated against for no reason.

"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.

The story is a recount of bullying, told from the point of view of Davy Morne, who describes himself as one of the worst of the bullies. The victim is Herbie, the only indigenous kid at the school, who is brutally bullied for being noticeably different; because he has strong Indigenous features. He is described, “as black as a crow,” imagery which reinforces this difference, as does the language in words like “Boong”, “Nigger” and “Abo”, words which appear in the opening sentences, grabbing the reader’s shocked attention and compelling the reader to continue because how can anyone get away with such brazenly, racist language. Archie Weller excelled throughout the course of this story in his use of imagery: every sentence carried a vivid imagination, from the description of Herbie, his bullies or his torture and all this was cleverly done from the point of view of young Davy Morne.

Laurel and her troops’ continued racial exclusion and perceived marginalization is another major driving force behind the group’s solidarity. Unlike most of the other girls, Laurel does not seem to have an inherent or genuine prejudice toward white people. Her limited exposure and lack of integration with this group

In the short story Brownies, written by ZZ Packer, the story takes place in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia and within this suburbs, lies a group of Girl Scouts who are in camp. This camp is called Camp Crescendo. This camping site houses two camp groups: the Brownies which are African American and Troop 909 girls who are Caucasian. The story is narrated by a young girl named Laurel, who’s also known as Snot among the Brownies. The story begins by Snot giving a brief overview of the other six girls and the camp. During this time, racial tensions were in abundance throughout the United States. As the story progresses, Arnetta over hears a young girl from the Troop 909 calls Daphne a brownie girl a “nigger” and the dynamic of the story changes

Patsy and Joby’s settinga are alike in many ways. One of those ways is the fact that there is lots of conflict going on in each story. One of those conflicts is in Patsy’s story and it’s the racism. Text from page 107 states the white doctor being racist to the black women who was once a slave. Page 107 states, “…said the doctor, ‘I don’t see what you people want to come up here for anyhow. Why don’t you just stay down South where you belong? You come up here and you’re just a burden and a trouble to they city.” Text from page 113 states the fact that the conflict in Joby’s story is the war. Page 113 states, “This story is about a Civil War drummer boy.”

Racism was hard for Melba, her family, and every person who was one of the little rock nine. Racism brought hate between black and white people. Racism is a bad thing. Melba’s mother shouted the words “epsom salts and water”, as she raced down the hall, desperately searching for a nurse. The woman was in digant, saying yes, come to think of it, the doctor had said something about epsom salts. “ But we don’t coddle niggers.” She growled.(page3). Why people write “colored” on all the ugly drinking fountains, the dingy restrooms, and the back of the buses.(page3). Melba wanted to ride the merry-go-round but the white man said “there’s no space for you here.”(page4).

‘48 Shades of Brown’ by Nick Earls is a novel that follows Dan Bancroft, the main protagonist, and his troubling experiences as he goes through his final year of school. Dan is thrown into a world of unfamiliarity, where he makes many comical and embarrassing decisions. This novel expresses the theme of having or not having control subtly through the choices Dan makes, and their consequences. This theme is also successfully revealed through the four elements; characters, plot, motifs and setting. The relationships between the characters are vital to providing an insight into the theme.

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

The story is set in 1968 in Oakland, California three young girls Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern who leave their father in Brooklyn to go Oakland to meet their mother who abandoned them. Oakland at this time is a boiling pot with political and racial turmoil, with the Black Panthers at the head of a movement fighting for civil rights. In a historical context many readers at this age level have not been exposed to the many freedom fighter organizations like The Black Panthers, middle school students are usually only exposed to a limited number of figures in the civil rights movement like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

The writer ZZ Packer’s short story, “Brownies,” is about a troop of African-American Girl Scouts from south Atlanta that takes a camping trip; unfortunately, almost instantly, imaginary tensions build up between them and Troop 909, a group of white girls; struggle that later in this story develops as the main external conflict. Arnetta and Octavia, appear as the leaders of the group, and insist that the 909 girls called one of their group a derogatory word which is the starting point of the conflict. Consequently, a confrontation rapidly takes place between the teams, but this quarrel turns awry when the African-American girls realize the white members of Troop 909 are developmentally disabled and it becomes clear to the reader that

The feeling of being judged for the experiences an individual faces can be detrimental to the person 's personality by that these experiences result in you trying to become someone you are not so that you hide what society feels is your flaw, your race. Starr lives in two completely separate worlds, Garden Heights and the area surrounding Williamson High School. These two worlds hinders Starr’s ability to voice her opinions and thoughts about anything because in both of these areas there is this fear of overstepping boundaries. Overstepping boundaries in either area causes an individual to become threatened, for example, in Garden Heights, Starr silences herself whenever she is around gang members because she is frightened that the gang members will harm both her and her family for her opinions. Starr silences herself when she is at Williamson High School, especially since she is one out of the few African Americans that attends there, because her opinion is outnumbered by the majority of the population who are either ignorant about the issues that affects Starr’s race or cares less to even hear issues that occurs to others beside them.

The setting is essential in highlighting the severity of racism in the world Blackman has created. The reader realizes that racism is apparent in the society in which Callum and Sephy live but it is not until Callum is given the rare opportunity to attend a Cross school that we see the extent of discrimination and intolerance towards noughts which commonly occurs. The merging of noughts and Crosses changes the setting completely, throwing the reader directly into conflict. The racist values and attitudes of Crosses are clearly seen on Callum’s first day of school when Crosses are uncontrollably protesting, continually chanting ‘No blankers in our school’. This displays that the world Callum and Sephy live in is a drastic reversal of ours. Instead of the white race being dominant in society, power roles are radically reversed so blacks are the elite race. Underlying the issue of racism is the issue of relationships and that in this extreme world Callum and Sephy can never be together in a nought and Cross relationship. I think Blackman is trying to recreate a world using the same system as apartheid did in South Africa during the late 1940’s to early 1990’s. She is using the book as a way to impact the white population by informing them of the discrimination black people have suffered.

I believe, out of all of the short stories we read thus far, Snot, from Brownies is the most dynamic character. The change is that hate is everywhere in the world; even her father has hate inside of him. Snot comes to this realization at the end of the short story by telling the rest of her Brownie Troop the story of the Mennonites. Her father took advantage of the fact they will do anything if asked by having the Mennonites paint their porch (Packer 27). Snot asked her father the reasoning behind this and he responded by saying “…‘it was the only time he’d have a white man on his knees doing something for a black man for free’” (Packer 27). This is showing how her father did this out of spite to settle some hurt he had in the past with white