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Essay / Racial Segregation and Prejudice in ZZ Packer's Brownies
The short story "Brownies" is written by the author, ZZ Packer. It surrounds a group of fourth-grade African-American Brownie girls who go to a campsite near the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia called Camp Crescendo. During the trip, they encounter another group of brownies made up of white girls, all mentally disabled. “Brownies” is told from a first-person perspective, through a Brownie member of the African-American troupe, named Laurel. Because the story is set in the 1960s, ZZ Packer explores issues that were prevalent during that era, such as racial segregation and prejudice. Racism is considered “the systematic oppression of African Americans and other people of color and the ideology associated with it.” of white supremacy and black inferiority” (Bohmer 95). It expects constitutional predominance or insufficiency on the basis of recognized societal characteristics (Pachter et al. 61). Racial segregation exists abundantly in the United States, particularly in the 1960s in the South, where it was enforced by law. Laurel recalls that white people are rarely seen in the south suburbs of Atlanta: “it [is] easy to forget white people. White people [are] like those baby pigeons: real and existing, but rarely seen or thought of” (Packer 179). Packer translates the reality of the time extremely well by creating a troop of black Girl Scouts and a troop of white Girl Scouts, but there is no mixing of races in either group. Furthermore, the two troops remain separated throughout the story and the tension generated between them recalls the struggles experienced by people of color. In the 1960s, African-Americans and whites did not share the same public facilities, particularly schools. .. middle of paper ......Orval Totdahl. “Racism in kindergarten? The primary school newspaper. 69.4 (1969): 184. University of Chicago Press. Internet. March 21, 2014.Mendoza-Denton, Rodolfo Ph.D. “Anti-White Racism: The Neglected Phenomenon.” » Are we born racists. Psychology today. November 10, 2010. The web. March 24, 2014.Packer, ZZ. “Brownies.” Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. XJ Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 4th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2006. 177-94. Print.Pachter, Lee M. et al. “Perceived racism and discrimination among children and young people: an exploratory study.” » Health and Social Work 35.1 (2010): 61. MEDLINE with full text. Internet. March 18, 2014. Racism. Anti-Defamation League, New York, 2001. Web. March 26, 2014. Wilkins, Roger. "Racism." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 572 (2000): 159. Sage Publications, Inc. Web. March 25. 2014