While other girls' troops are selling cookies this season, a troop of girls in brown uniforms and sporting berets that pay homage to the Black Panthers are talking about racial injustices while calling themselves the "Radical Brownies."
Their group was formed in Oakland, California, about a month ago, reports San Francisco
CBS affiliate KPIX, and one of its founders, Anayvette Martinez, said she got the idea after her daughter, Coatlupe, said she wanted to join a girls' club.
"How amazing would it be to have a girls' troop that was really focused around social justice and where girls could even earn badges?" Martinez said.
The girls, ages 8-10, wear brown uniforms, much like the Brownies, which are affiliated with the Girl Scouts of America. However, they wear berets that one of the girls said was a "Black Panther/Brown Beret twist," and their first badges were in the shape of a fist, with the words "Black Lives Matter" on it. The girls earned that badge when they marched last month in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Oakland.
"The girls felt really just like passionate about the topic and they loved being there," Martinez said.
Their conversations also sounded much different at a recent meeting, KPIX reports, with one girl saying that "white policeman are killing black young folks such as women, men and children,” and another girl commenting that "Mike Brown. He was shot because he didn’t do nothing. Only the police officer shot him because of his skin color.”
Marilyn Hollinquest, another of the troop's founders, said that she sees nothing wrong with the girls' homage to the Black Panthers, as "a lot of the work the Black Panthers did was community oriented."
Martinez said that the girls are tackling some major issues, but "we also feel like these are conversations that they’re not too young to be having.”
And while the Radical Brownies' leaders have been accused by some people on
their Facebook page of brainwashing the girls and teaching them racism, Hollinquest denied telling them what they should think.
"Kids already understand fairness and unfairness, so we take that understanding at an age-appropriate level,” she said.
The troop's Facebook page has already received 10,000 likes, and describes the group as being one that "empowers young girls of color to step into their collective power, brilliance, and leadership to make the world a more radical place."
Requests are also coming in from other places to start further chapters of the Radical Brownies, which is not affiliated with the Girl Scouts of America organization.