Previous
Chapter 14
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Hate Race, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racial Discrimination in Australia
Racism, Childhood, and Loss of Innocence
Race and Beauty Standards
Injustice and Complicity
The Power of Words
Summary
Analysis
In grade eight, Maxine’s history teacher, Miss Cooke, shows a video of Australia’s prime minister, Paul Keating, acknowledging the dispossession and brutalization of Aboriginal people and apologizing for it. Miss Cooke, whom Maxine likes due to her unflinching teaching of Aboriginal history, opens up a discussion about the video. One girl says that she thinks it’s good—although it was their ancestors that did it, not them—but a racist bully named Greg Adams says that it wasn’t good, and that white Australians should have wiped out all Aboriginal Australians when they had the chance. Miss Cooke, enraged, kicks Greg out of the classroom. As he leaves, he smirks and mouths a slur to Maxine.
This scene shows the absolute best and absolute worst of Maxine’s school. While Miss Cooke does her best to acknowledge Australia’s racist past and get her students to meaningfully engage with it, the response from Maxine’s classmates are, to put it mildly, less than encouraging. Greg Adams is of course an example of extreme, blatant racism, but Maxine’s other classmate, who complains that present-day white Australians should not be blamed for their ancestors’ acts, also prioritizes her own feelings and sense of goodness over truly engaging with the past and present brutality against Aboriginal Australians.
Themes
Maxine describes Greg Adams’s unrelenting racism and how he torments all people of color, whether student or teacher, in the school. Selina once challenges him on his views, but he proudly embraces his racism and says white people should be separate from everyone else. He is especially cruel to Maxine; he and his friend Lachlan regularly try to trip her and force her to call herself slurs before they allow her to enter the bathroom. Multiple times, Maxine ends up in the principal’s office, sobbing from the horrible harassment, but the principal simply tells her to ignore the boys.
Greg Adams is the most extreme racist bully Maxine has encountered so far. Unlike her other classmates, who have internalized racist ideals but parrot them somewhat blithely, Greg’s relentless harassment against every person of color in the school shows a deliberate campaign of terror, and his comment about white people being separate from others suggests a cohesive white supremacist ideology. Despite these serious warning signs, however, the school does absolutely nothing to stop him.
Themes
The stress of her mistreatment begins to weigh on Maxine so much that she starts to scratch herself in her sleep. She goes to see the counselor, who asks if there’s anything wrong “other than a little bit of teasing.” Maxine knows that the counselor won’t take her experiences with racism seriously, so she says she has bulimia, as she believes this is a “white girl” problem that the counselor knows how to address. The counselor is skeptical due to Maxine’s size, so Maxine admits that she lied and says she’s pregnant instead. The counselor is angry at Maxine for not taking the process seriously, and Maxine never goes back. Maxine’s scratching causes lesions on her face, resulting in Greg accusing her of having AIDS.
Maxine’s experience with her school counselor is a damning indictment of the latter’s inability to deal with racism. Maxine’s lies show how she has learned that, compared to other crises students might be facing, racism is not viewed as a real problem. While bulimia and teen pregnancy are certainly things that require counselling, it is notable that, compared to them, the counselor only sees racist bullying as “a little bit of teasing.” As a result of the counselor’s failure, Maxine’s stress continues to manifest physically, which only worsens the harassment she faces from Greg.
Themes
