Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

Laurel, who narrates the story “Brownies,” is a young black girl at Brownie camp. Her classmates call her “Snot” because of a messy sneeze, and they often dismiss her as a rule-follower and question whether they can trust her not to tattle. Laurel is quiet, smart, and a bit socially awkward. She finds it difficult to connect to the other girls and is forced into the scheme to get revenge on the white troop by Arnetta and Octavia. After camp ends, as the girls from her troop reflect on the bus about the ways they’re treated differently because they’re black, Laurel realizes that the aggression of the other girls toward the white campers arises out of pain and oppression and a desire to seize power and pass that suffering onto someone else. Laurel illustrates the disillusionment of a young black child who begins to understand racial inequality.

In “Brownies,” Arnetta is the most outspoken of the troop of girls and acts as their self-appointed leader. She has convinced Mrs. Margolin, their troop’s scout leader, that she can do no wrong, which gives her leeway to misbehave. Arnetta insists to the rest of the troop that she heard one of the white girls call Daphne a racial slur.