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...

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…