Brownies

Exploring Inherited Racism ZZ Packer’s short story, “Brownies,” demonstrates a repeated cycle of inherited racism with a possibility for change presented by Laurel and Daphne’s approach to dealing with racial struggles. The story revolves around a racial conflict between Laurel’s Brownie troop (black girls) and troop 909 (white girls), where a girl from troop 909 allegedly refers to Daphne with a racial insult. The girls have dealt with racism directly through their own experiences and indirectly by their parents past racial conflicts. This causes the girls to stereotype white people, to view them as outsiders, and it also leads to the inadvertent reenacting of their parents racial struggles when confronting troop 909. Packer illustrates a chance for change with Daphne and Laurel’s approach to their parents’ racial conflicts, and there own racial struggles. Through their parents’ passed down racial struggles, and their own encounter with racism, Laurel’s troop builds a misguided foundation on dealing with white people, which can only be broken by exploring other options as individuals. Laurel and her Brownie companions, at a very young age, have experienced racism through their parents passed down racial conflicts and through their own encounters with it. Arnetta shares a story where she and her mom are at the mall and get “stared at like they’re foreigners, all the girls nod in agreement” (Page517). They fully understand that they’re degraded for their skin color which is also why they were put in camp with a troop of mentally challenged girls. The narrators’ parents passed down racial struggles have affected the girls by passing those conflicts down, and creating suffering and confusion to their already difficult lives. “You are my father the veteran/When you cry in the dark/It rains and rains and rains in my heart” (Page 505). Through this poem by Daphne, a quiet, humble, down to earth girl whose character is similar to Laurels, Packer explains