Polarization In ZZ Packer's Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

The main idea of this entry is about the stereotypes that come along with racism. Also, Brent Staples wants his readers to realize how much colored people sacrifice from their normality in order to fit in with society, in hopes of not being attacked or offended. The author proves this in his entry by mentioning ‘innocent’ behaviors, such as singing Beethoven, that he did in public in order to relief those surrounding him from danger. Moreover, the author compared hikers to the country’s bears in order to provide readers with a valid connection between black and colored people. In addition to that, Brent Staples uses flashback as one of his techniques when sharing with us his encounters with white people, this gives readers an idea of how

Alice Munro’s “Child's Play” and ZZ Packer’s “Brownies” are powerful short stories that explore themes of friendships, discrimination against marginalized communities, and the lasting impact of mistreatment. Each story approaches these themes in its unique way, but both demonstrate the significant impact of words and actions on the lives of people. In “Child's Play,” there is the portrayal of toxic friendships, while in “Brownies,” Packer shows the conflicts and misunderstandings between two groups of girls from different backgrounds as a result of lies and prejudices. Despite their differences, both stories highlight the impact of words and the enduring qualities of the characters, both good and bad.

In this short story the Brownie troops at the summer camp appear either all black or all white, no mixed troop is present. This displays the constant segregation occurring and the influence it has on young children who are vulnerable to a racially segregated environment causing them to portray themselves a certain way. The black girls have little knowledge of people different than them, “When you lived in the south suburbs of Atlanta, it was easy to forget about whites. Whites were like those baby pigeons: real and existing, but rarely seen or thought about” (pg. 5), because of these girls have little contact with one another and the black girls are extremely conscious of the differences they posses. The feeling of differences comes from the world around them, what they hear and see affect their opinions tremendously.

A pressing, socio-economic issue seen prevelantly in today’s society is racism. The term has been used for a long time, but has still found its way to stay in the current vocabulary of people in the twenty-first century. The timeless occurence of racism in society has been documented in a piece of literature that enables the horrors of this foulness to forever be known. “Brownies” by ZZ Packer made its way to the shelves in 2003 and has left many in awe of the in-depth perception of how people of the black race were mistreated. The story starts off when a group of black girls were mistreated by a group of white girls at a retreat known as Camp Crescendo (Packer 1).

Although Aunt Alexandra does not possess the strength to detach from the social customs, Scout and Calpurnia are able to cast off the conventional roles despite society’s wishes. Calpurnia’s act of successfully living in black and white communities and Scout’s act of defying typical gender roles illustrates to the reader how immensely society pressures women. Although the expectations of women in modern times are not the same as in southern Alabama, women are still oppressed today. It is not always clear to see, but women today are so used to acting a certain way, they are unable to recognize the inequality between genders and races. Through Aunt Alexandra the reader is able to grasp, that not every woman is capable of having the incredible amount of strength it takes to break away from the socially accepted roles.

The story represents the culmination of Wright’s passionate desire to observe and reflect upon the racist world around him. Racism is so insidious that it prevents Richard from interacting normally, even with the whites who do treat him with a semblance of respect or with fellow blacks. For Richard, the true problem of racism is not simply that it exists, but that its roots in American culture are so deep it is doubtful whether these roots can be destroyed without destroying the culture itself. “It might have been that my tardiness in learning to sense white people as "white" people came from the fact that many of my relatives were "white"-looking people. My grandmother, who was white as any "white" person, had never looked "white" to me” (Wright 23).

2 Questions of “Brownies” 1. In the short story, “Brownies,” I would describe the narrator, whose name is Laurel, as a shy and timid girl, questioning the way people act. Most of the girls in her group do not take a liking to her, for she says, “[They] already decided their course of action, me being the only impediment” (Packer 847). Moreover, the narrator is very smart because she is skeptical, for she is the only one who questions the girls if they, in fact, heard troop 909 call one of the girls a nigger.

America is made up from all different types of cultures from all around the world, such as Europe, Asia, and Africa. In America Street, there is a lot of different cultures in each story. Like in The Circuit, Francisco Jiménez talks about his family sharecropping and his opportunity and conflicts with going to school. The common theme of cultural, racial or religious differences appears in Sixth Grade, The Wrong Lunch Line, and The All-American Slurp.

Literary Analysis Essay William Howard The short story that I chose for my literary analysis essay is “Brownies” By ZZ Packer. This fictional short story had a powerful meaning because it focused on how racial stereotyping can cause a lot of problems even among young girls who were attending a Girl Scouts camp. “Brownies” also showed how stereotyping can actually be harmful and can sometimes lead to hurtful consequences for the person who is the victim of it and for the person is guilty of stereotyping someone. I decided to do my analysis of this short story using the historical context element because of the long history of problems between the Black and White races in this country according to our history books, including

At the beginning of the story, Packer shows how hard it was for Dina to adapt to society due to her race. Being black was the most difficult thing at that time because black students had to do their best to fit into the white system. Racism was so intense that whites were considered superior to blacks. As a student, Dina and other freshmen played frustrating and heady games that were believed to be for smart people. During one of the orientation games, the freshman counselor says to her, “You do not have to play this game.

The social groups focused on in this novel are white housewives, whose group consists of Skeeter, the privileged daughter of a farmer, who just returned from college, and “the help” or a group of maids who are of course of African American decent. The help is forced to obey their irrationally needy bosses, cooking for them, cleaning for them, and even raising their children, only to be treated inhumanely and unfairly by petty housewives. For example, one of the housewives, Hilly Holbrook, a seemingly conflicting character alone, was very suggestive of a bathroom act being enforced, which made it mandatory that every home have a separate bathroom for its help as a “safety precaution” because they could transmit diseases through their bodily functions. In situations like these, African Americans were very alienated, and it really displayed the gap in reality for the two groups. This in turn caused conflict between them, as African Americans were looked down at by whites and the whites were seen as threatening and wicked minded by African Americans.

In his book the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie portrays a teenage boy, Arnold Spirit (junior) living in white man’s world, and he must struggle to overcome racism and stereotypes if he must achieve his dreams. In the book, Junior faces a myriad of misfortunes at his former school in ‘the rez’ (reservation), which occurs as he struggles to escape from racial and stereotypical expectations about Indians. For Junior he must weigh between accepting what is expected of him as an Indian or fight against those forces and proof his peers and teachers wrong. Therefore, from the time Junior is in school at reservation up to the time he decides to attend a neighboring school in Rearden, we see a teenager who is facing tough consequences for attempting to go against the racial stereotypes.

By criticizing her “girliness” he was essentially telling her she was incapable of participating, and Scout was even more fired up to prove the boys wrong. Scout attempted to break this mold by “fitting in” right along the boys, and having fun. The story line elucidates how women were treated as second class citizens, during this period of time. In conclusion, the book depicts race and ethnicity as enormous issues that impact our society.

By focusing on how the people surrounding Christmas pose racial opinions onto him and forcefully shape his perception of himself as animalistic, Faulkner demonstrates how Christmas’s individuality heavily relies on the external thoughts and ideas of the people around him. Starting in his early childhood, staff and other children at his orphanage ensure Joe knows what they think of him and are quick to alienate him from the group. The first instance of Christmas being accused of black parentage occurs when the other children at his orphanage begin “calling him Nigger” (Faulkner, 127). The children have no grounds to call him this, but are acting upon his differently shaded skin perhaps from Uncle Doc Hines’ influence as the janitor and the only man who knows Christmas’s origins.

1.0 INTRODUCTION The Help is an example of American drama film. It was released in August 9, 2011 and its length was 146 minutes and directed by Tate Taylor. The film was adapted to a novel, where there has been a long tradition of African- American women serving as “The Help” for upper-middle class white woman and their families. Descriptions of historical events of the early activities of thecivil rights movement are peppered throughout the novel, as are interactions between the maids and their white employers.