Attack of Division

In the short story “Brownies,” by ZZ Packer there is a strong sense of disconnect between the troop of black girls and the white girls in Troop 909. Based on this quote from page 5, “When you live in the south suburbs of Atlanta, it is easy to forget about whites. Whites were like those baby pigeons: real and existing, but rarely seen or thought about,” it is quite apparent that the girls have very limited interaction with white people, and this is something that I believe is vital to the story and the girls’ decision making. This story follows the narrator, “Snots’,” brownie group at Camp Crescendo, where there is another brownie troop, Troop 909. Snots’ brownie group is all black and Troop 909 is all white, so when one of the girls in Troop 909 calls one of the girls in Snots troop the N-word the girls in Snots’ group decide that they will jump the girls in Troop 909 to get revenge. 

I believe that since seeing a white person was so foreign to the girls in Snots’ troop their ultimate decision to attack Troop 909 was in a way rushed and tainted. By this I mean that because the girls rarely interact with white people their decision to jump the white girls in troop 909 was made without much thought. This is because as humans, it is common to develop a sense of disdain for those we feel separate from, and from the quote on page 5 and the rest of the story we see that the girls definitely felt disconnected from white people. In this case, I think that since the girls felt separate and disconnected from the white girls they had a lingering disdain for them which caused them to make the decision to attack more quickly because they already did not care much for Troop 909. Furthermore, the fact that the word “caucasian” was used as an insult at the girls’ school proves that they may have had an inner disdain for the white girl. While the reason the girls wanted to jump Troop 909 is completely valid, I think that because they felt so separate from white people their decision was slightly impulsive.