I was a Brownie. It was a short-lived experience - just one year - when my family moved to a city that offered the program. Each Tuesday night I put on my brown dress, tied my orange and white scarf into the well-known Brownie knot, and headed to my elementary school where the weekly meetings were held. We sang, played games, did crafts and earned badges, all the while promising to do our best and be kind.
I earned a few badges as a Brownie. I also won an orange and white polka-dotted candle for being voted "Best Dressed Brownie." Since we all wore the same uniform, the award belonged to my mom who ensured the brown dress was perfectly laundered and I looked my best.
Brownies were a branch of Girl Guides and originated when younger sisters began tagging along in England so a group was formed for them called Rosebuds. A year later their name was changed to Brownies, based on the English folklore of helpful, magical elf-like figures doing secret good deeds.
For over 100 years the name was used in Canada, but that came to an end last week. The chief executive of Girl Guides Canada said a new name was needed because girls were experiencing racism and felt they weren’t welcome because of the name. Current and former members said it caused them harm and prevented or delayed their decision to join.
The change is not without precedent. The organization has made several modifications over the years as officials “keep it relevant and up-to-date.” This has meant changes to names, uniforms and mottos, including a move in 2010 to remove any mention of God or religion.
So the name Brownies is no more, replaced by “Embers” following an online vote held over a two-week period late last year.
At no point in my (admittedly short) time in Brownies did we ever see the name as anything other than referencing the colour of the outfits we wore. There was never a sense that the name was thought of as derogatory to anyone with a different skin tone or ethnicity.
But things have changed.
If there truly were children who felt the name was hurtful then perhaps the organization was right in reviewing it, but where do we go from here?
Not to make light of anyone's pain, but what do we do now with the word brownie? Does it mean recipe books need to be reprinted and dessert menus redone? Brownies, the delightfully delicious fudgy bars in all their various forms, have been a staple since 1893. Do they need to be renamed?
There are some words I wish we could re-think. One is 'adoption.' As an adoptive mother of two daughters, my use of the term references a lifelong, permanent relationship, so to hear of programs to 'adopt a highway' or temporarily 'adopt a family' belies the permanency of the relationship. For me adoption doesn't run fleetingly for a summer or the month of December; it is forever. Yet I understand why the word is used. It invokes ideas of care and nurture—putting in effort to keep a stretch of roadway free from litter; or taking care of the needs of a family at a special time of year. I don't expect people to discontinue the use of the term just because it means something else to me. What I need to do is live in a way that cherishes the word differently. We don't want to cause hurt, but let's be sure the demands we are calling for make sense. As the mom of a child with brown skin, I can tell you there were words levelled at her that caused harm and pain, as opposed to the terms that had nothing to do with intentional offence. We knew the difference. More importantly, so did she.
By definition, an ember is a little piece of wood or coal in a fire that’s dying. Is this the image those doing the voting really wanted to convey? It is also intriguing that for an organization that 13 years ago did away with religious references, they now embrace a name that in Hebrew means ‘appointed by God.’
We all have issues, vocabulary and imagery that can personally push our buttons and rile us up when its use is not what was originally intended. But we can spend our lives offended, or we can live in such a way that demonstrates its value to us and rise above the noise.
I have little doubt I have done things in my life that have been hurtful and insensitive to others. Being a Brownie is not one of them. That's my outlook.
