Baby Food
Response to a short story
In this short story by ZZ Packer “Brownies” there are two main characters. They are Arnetta and Laurel also known as “Snot”. Racism plays a huge role in this short story. The racial prejudice and hostility shown in the story appears to be the product of historical circumstances combined with the current reality of racial segregation. This short story compares two stories that have a similar meaning which is, one does not know where another is coming from at first glance. Two it takes time to get to know people deeply.
In the bathroom scene when they finally confront the white girl scouts in the bathroom, some interesting revelations are made. They learn the white girls have “special needs,” and their plan to attack the girls’ falls away “Were not retarted the big girl said…. The girls around her began to whimper. They’re just pretending Arnetta lets just leave…. We’re gonna teach you a lesson. Shut up Janice, Octavia said, but her heart was not in it. Octavia turned to the big girls and said were going to leave, it was nice meeting you OK” (21) Octavia and Arnetta decide that they were going to beat up the mentally challenged girls, until they had a change of heart. This quote is essential because it’s showing how the “Brownies” had a chance to take advantage of the mentally challenge girls, but instead they didn’t. They decided to leave them alone.
In the Mennonite story the black man asks the white man to do something for him knowing that the white man couldn’t say no. “He went up to the man and asked him would he paint our porch and the man said yes” (27). The reason the white man couldn’t say no was because as a Mennonite it’s against your religion to say no when people ask them to do something. Laurels dad felt privileged. “It was the only time he’d have a white man on his knees doing something for a black man for free” (27). This quote is essential because around this time racism was still around. With a white man painting a
In this short story by ZZ Packer “Brownies” there are two main characters. They are Arnetta and Laurel also known as “Snot”. Racism plays a huge role in this short story. The racial prejudice and hostility shown in the story appears to be the product of historical circumstances combined with the current reality of racial segregation. This short story compares two stories that have a similar meaning which is, one does not know where another is coming from at first glance. Two it takes time to get to know people deeply.
In the bathroom scene when they finally confront the white girl scouts in the bathroom, some interesting revelations are made. They learn the white girls have “special needs,” and their plan to attack the girls’ falls away “Were not retarted the big girl said…. The girls around her began to whimper. They’re just pretending Arnetta lets just leave…. We’re gonna teach you a lesson. Shut up Janice, Octavia said, but her heart was not in it. Octavia turned to the big girls and said were going to leave, it was nice meeting you OK” (21) Octavia and Arnetta decide that they were going to beat up the mentally challenged girls, until they had a change of heart. This quote is essential because it’s showing how the “Brownies” had a chance to take advantage of the mentally challenge girls, but instead they didn’t. They decided to leave them alone.
In the Mennonite story the black man asks the white man to do something for him knowing that the white man couldn’t say no. “He went up to the man and asked him would he paint our porch and the man said yes” (27). The reason the white man couldn’t say no was because as a Mennonite it’s against your religion to say no when people ask them to do something. Laurels dad felt privileged. “It was the only time he’d have a white man on his knees doing something for a black man for free” (27). This quote is essential because around this time racism was still around. With a white man painting a