Brownies by ZZ Packer Essay

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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 …show more content…
Even little things like hair could produce these hostile feelings, according to the fourth grader. “Their long, shampoo-commercial hair, straight as spaghetti from the box”, as Lauren describes, nutrients the prejudices that finally help bring about racism. The forced separation that troop experienced in addition to exposure of only glimpses of White people, can explain the white girls as "invaders’ and hence, the enemy. It is not concretely clear that the White girls used a racial slur, but if they had it seemed because of their disabilities it would not have been intentional. However, the White girls may have indeed repeated what they had heard. This would point directly to prejudice that still exists in Modern day times.
In society, racial conflict might be understandable among adults; nevertheless, resentment is young children must not be tolerated. Packer deliberately sets the characters as children dealing with adult issues in order to convey a higher impact with her argument. The author intentionally presents two historically rival groups in America, blacks and whites, to prove the argument that when individuals, have experienced discrimination, prejudice, and inequality for so long, it is understandable if unintended retaliation takes place. Some of the girls in the African-American group did not even want to encounter the girls from Troop 909, yet Octavia carried so much hatred inside, that she forced all the
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