Brownies: history, preparation, and cultural significance

Brownies is a short story showing the importance of point-of-view. The racial point-of-view of the young black girls in the narrator's Brownies troop is important because it influences how they interpret and respond to situations. Each group member's point-of-view within the group is also important because it influences them as leaders, intimidators, followers, allies and independent thinkers. Though "Brownies" could be read as a simple short story about a childhood memory, it actually addresses the importance of peoples' points-of-view.

"Brownies" is a short story about an incident that took place at Camp Crescendo when the author was a Brownie. The story certainly belongs in a book chapter called "Point-of-View" because the story gives us a group of young black girls' point-of-view. "The Brownies" is a youth organization for grade school girls who are younger than "Girl Scouts." All the girls in the author's Brownie Troop are black and some of the members are: Snot, the narrator; Arnetta, who seems to be an unofficial leader of the group who can intimidate people in the group; Octavia, who sometimes sides with Arnetta; Daphne, who is a quiet member of the group; Janice; Drema; and Elise. During that summer at Camp Crescendo, they met Brownie Troop 909, an all-white troop. Even before they met the white troop, members of the black troop had a point-of-view about whites: about a month before camp, Arnetta called someone "Caucasian" as an insult and from then on, calling someone or something "Caucasian" made Arnetta, Octavia and members of the black troop laugh (Packer 39). Also, before the incident with Troop 909, the reader knows at least some of the author's troop feels friction or resentment toward Troop 909 because Arnetta insulted Troop 909 the first minute she saw them by saying they all smelled like "wet Chihuahuas" (Packer 39). Also, even before the supposed incident, Octavia made a point of saying "nobody calls us niggers" (Packer 40). Consequently, even before the incident, a reader would know that at least some members of the black troop had a point-of-view of "envy and hatred" toward Troop 909 (Packer 40).

The incident happened after the black troop and Troop 909 were settled in camp on that first day. Arnetta said she heard a member of Troop 909 call Daphne a "nigger" (Packer 40). Daphne shrugged and then reluctantly agreed that it happened after she got "a hard look" from Arnetta (Packer 40). Octavia quickly picked up the cause and even though some members were reluctant to believe that the insult happened, members of the black troop became caught up in ditching their adult Brownie leaders and getting revenge for the insult. Led by Arnetta and Octavia, the black girls plan to ambush Troop 909 in the bathroom, confront them and fight them. Even Snot, who was not fond of fighting, joined in the plan because she "felt I was part of the rest of the troop; like I was defending something" (Packer 47). The group managed to get away from their adult leaders and Arnetta and Octavia went into the bathroom after Troop 909; however, they were all surprised to find that Troop 909's white girls were also "delayed learners" (Packer 49) or "retarded" (Packer 47). Arnetta still wanted to pursue revenge, first accusing one white girl of calling Daphne "nigger" and then when it became clear that the first white girl had trouble speaking and probably did not insult Daphne, accusing another white girl of doing it (Packer 49). However, once all the black girls burst into the bathroom and saw that the white girls were obviously "retarded," Octavia took control, stopping the plan for revenge, telling the biggest white girl that it was nice to meet her and telling her that she didn't have to say that the black girls had been there. The black girls got caught anyway: their own adult leader was angry and said they would apologize but the white troop leader wanted to forgive them because one of the white girls could have repeated a word like "nigger" without meaning to insult anyone (Packer 48-9).

"Brownies" shows the power of point-of-view. Because of the black girls' point-of-view about whites, plus their ages, personalities and dealings with each other, the incident involves a lot more than just hearing and dealing with an insult. First, point-of-view based on race is very important to this story because it can make people interpret situations in certain ways and can make them respond to the situations in certain ways. Arnetta and Octavia seemed to especially have a point-of-view that was nearly paranoid about white people: even after the incident, they both grabbed the idea that their troop was forced to go to camp with a "retarded" troop because their troop is black (Packer 50). They also started making fun of the white girls' awkwardly "retarded" movements when the troop was on its way home on the bus (Packer 49-50). In addition, Snot talked about an incident in which her father asked a white Mennonite to paint his front porch because the Mennonite could not religiously refuse and because "it was the only time he'd have a white man on his knees doing something for a black man for free" (Packer 51). Snot figured that "When you've been made to feel bad for so long, you jump at the chance to do it to others" (Packer 51). At the same time, Snot and Daphne are unhappy about that racially negative point-of-view (Packer 50-1). Secondly, point-of-view depending on where a person is within a group is important: Arnetta is an unofficial leader and can intimidate people to go along with her; still, someone like Octavia will stand up to the group leader if she thinks it's necessary; finally, someone quiet like Snot and Daphne will even speak up with enough encouragement if they have something to say.