Racism In Brownies By Z Z Packer

In the short story “Brownies” by Z. Z. Packer a young girl that goes by the name of Snot realizes that the world is a harsh place. Not only does Snot have a realization about the world, but she also realizes that everyone around her is contributing to the harshness and meanness and Snot cannot do anything about it. The harshness and meanness in the world that Snot cannot do anything about is racism. All throughout the story, racism is a huge factor, but the main character realizes that racism comes in all different ways including age and color. From the very beginning of the story you automatically see racism. This is when the girls in Snots troop see that the white girl troop 909 is going to be at the camp they are at. Arnetta, one of

Snot’s father said “’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 quote is showing that Snot’s father was being racist to the Mennonite people by taking advantage of their religion and having them paint his porch. This also shows that not only can white people be racist to black people, but that black people can be racist to white people. This is a huge thing to Snot because she is learning that racism can come in all colors and not just a specific color being racist against another color. Snot being able to realize this shows that she is very mature for her age and that she is starting to notice the world as a harsh place. At the very end of the short story I found that what Daphne said in response to Arnettas question shows that Daphne was starting to understand that racism comes in all different ways. Arnetta stated that “’If I asked them to take off their long skirts and bonnets and put on some jeans, would they do it?’ And Daphne’s voice, quite, steady: ‘Maybe they would. Just to be nice’” (Packer 28). This passage really shows that Arnetta is not understanding that racism is a situation instead she wants to humiliate the Mennonite people more, while Daphne on the other hand is realizing, along with Snot, that racism is an

The whole short story revolves around this fight and it is full of racism. When Arnetta addressed to the other girls in the troop about what the white girls called Daphne the troop went along with what Arnetta said. Arnetta made the issue bigger then what it needed to be by saying that “’We can’t let them get away with that,’ dropping her voice to a laryngitic whisper, ‘We can’t let them get away with calling us niggers. I say we teach them a lesson’” (Packer 7). This quote really shows how racism can spiral out of control when you feel your race is brought up in a negative way. These young girls are showing racism that you would not expect so it is a good explanation as to why race can come in all different ages. When the girls plot out how they are going to jump the white girls, the way they come up with the idea makes it hard to fully understand that this is coming from a group of girls that are roughly around the age of ten. At the end when the girls realize that the white girls did not mean to say the racial slur intentionally and also that maybe they figured that Arnetta was making the whole thing up they realized that racial discrimination can go both ways. This is shown when Arnetta tells the leader of Troop 909 and points to the girl who said it but the leader tells her that she could not have said that because she doesn’t speak. Then Arnetta goes on to say