Brownies

At a surface level, “Brownies” is a story about race; at a deeper level, like many narratives about race and racism, “Brownies” is a story about both perception and power. As characters who would have been born just after the time of the African-American civil rights movement in America, Snot and the rest of her troop are the first generation to come of age in the post-civil rights era. Implied in this, is the fact that they would be aware of—and would have themselves encountered—the continuing racism in America after this movement, especially in the American South.

The entire plot of “Brownies” cannot occur without the lie—or at least her misconception—created and spread by Arnetta; that is, her false statement that one of the white girls in Troop 909 called Daphne a “ni****”. However, it’s also Daphne’s failure to refute this claim that allows the rest of the troop to get worked up enough to seek revenge.

Arnetta’s lie, then, while not completely accepted by the rest of the troop, is also not called out as the fabrication that it is. Arnetta is able to perpetuate this lie for three reasons: 1) she holds the most powerful position in the group, in regard to the troop’s own social hierarchy; 2) Snot and her troop perceive Troop 909 only from afar, and incorrectly; and 3) the very real generalization, and truth, that most white people the girls have encountered retain racist attitudes, which they express explicitly or implicitly.

Packer illustrates the interconnection of active and passive forms of discrimination through the group dynamics of the Brownie Troop. Arnetta’s lie functions as an active—or explicit—assertion that racial discrimination has been committed, while the acceptance of this lie by the other members of the troop (except for Snot) can be understood as the passive—or implicit—acceptance of this behavior. Packer thus comments on how passive acceptance of discrimination can enable more active forms of prejudice in society, something the girls have all experienced in relation to their race.

Arnetta, the most vocal member of the troop, is also the most prone to violence, and because of her position as leader, the group follows along with what she says. Her tyranny is exposed as folly in the story’s climax, in which Arnetta, unable to accept the truth of the situation and admit there is no way a Troop 909 member could use the racial slur the troop has been accused of using, keeps trying to single out individual members of Troop 909 as the culprit.

Packer makes clear in multiple ways that none of this would have happened were the two Brownie troops to, even once, actually interact with one another. There is, however, good reason why this hasn’t happened, based on the real-life experiences—and inexperience—of the members of Snot’s troop. Snot says early in the story that “[w]hen you lived in the south suburbs of Atlanta, it was easy to forget about whites” (4). Snot and her troop’s experience growing up in a segregated neighborhood explains why none in the group thinks to actually approach the white Troop 909 girls and speak with them. This explanation is reinforced by Arnetta’s brief story at the end of “Brownies,” where she recounts how a white woman stared at Arnetta and her mom and said nothing, looking at them as though they were “foreign or something” (25).

Indeed, the most common image of white people that Snot possesses comes not from real life, but rather from TV, with Snot saying that she and the rest of her troop were curious as to whether the Troop 909 girls would be similar to the white girls they have seen on television. This lack of knowledge about white people is further implied by Packer through the series of Chihuahua-related insults that Arnetta and Octavia level at the Troop 909 girls upon first seeing them. Arnetta says that the 909 girls smell like Chihuahuas, then like “wet Chihuahuas,” with Octavia adding that the 909 troop is “serious Chihuahua,” then “Caucasian Chihuahua” (2-3).

Packer, through Snot, highlights the absurdity of these statements, saying that neither Arnetta nor Octavia could spell “Chihuahua” correctly, or had ever seen the breed in person. However, through the use of the word Caucasian, both vitriol and exoticism are expressed in relation to the white Brownies; if these white girls are mythic to Snot’s troop, they are made negatively so by Arnetta and Octavia.

The gap between the actual and the perceived is buttressed by the Brownie songs sung by the troop, in order to make Octavia’s mom, Mrs. Hedy, feel better about her impending divorce from her husband. By singing the absurd “The Doughnut Song,” the girls are able to make Mrs. Hedy, at least briefly, set aside her problems, even though the song offers no practical solution to Mrs. Hedy’s marital problems. Indeed, religion seems to function, in “Brownies,” as a sort of snake oil, something with no actual medicinal value that is nonetheless sold as a remedy for all diseases.

Religion is further complicated at the end of the story,when Snot relates the story of her father asking the group of Mennonites to paint his porch. The Mennonites, in accordance with their religious doctrine, must do as they are asked; while this appears to be a purely selfless tradition, it also reinforces their sense of their own piousness and contributes to their salvation. Snot’s father, who, as a black man, has been subject to racism all of his life, exacts his revenge on white people by forcing the Mennonites to perform manual labor, saying that he knew “‘it was the only time he’d have a white man on his knees doing something for a black man for free’” (27). Here, the Mennonites’ theological duties work as a sort of snake oil for the figurative injuries Snot’s father hassustained at the hands of racist whites. Performing manual labor for free, in this context, can’t help but elicit echoes of slavery, and while Snot’s father may ‘win,’ by getting whites to work for him at no cost, the larger issues of racism and bigotry remain unsolved.

Broadly, Packer places actions in “Brownies” into two categories: actions that are mandatory, and actions that are undertaken voluntarily. The former category is virtually empty, while the latter category is overfull; the subtext of this contributes to Packer’s commentary on race and racism: one’s ethnicity is not a choice, while racism is. What allows racism and bigotry to occur is power, and the flawed perceptions that too often accompany it.