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Chapter 19
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
Eventually, Bhagita relaxes around Maxine again, but Maxine never fully forgives herself for what she did. She and Selina begin reporting every instance of racism a school, no matter how small, which eventually wears down the bullies and decreases harassment. Maxine also joins debate club. She is extremely good at it and enjoys the verbal takedown aspect of it, which becomes a healthy outlet for her anger. She wins many debates by quoting speeches by Black revolutionaries, an approach she feels conflicted on but that her teammates encourage. At the region finals, her team is to debate in favor of Australia Day. Maxine feels uncomfortable with the topic. Her teammate Eric mentions that the team’s use of Black revolutionary speeches is ironic given that once of his ancestors was a slaver. Maxine is deeply upset by this and leaves the team before the match, never to return.
As Maxine progresses through high school, she begins to come into herself more. Her and Selina’s decision to meticulously combat racism is effective and shows how, in response to the school’s complicity, Maxine is taking anti-racist action into her own hands. Her performance in the debate team also shows her to be extremely skilled at rhetoric, although her use of Black revolutionary speeches shows that she is still torn between integrity towards her identity and wanting to fit in. However, her decision to walk out of a decisive match rather than defend colonialism shows that she has chosen the former.
Themes
After debate club, Maxine’s school nominates her to participate in the Lions Club Youth of the Year competition, which entails a current affairs quiz and a public speaking competition. For the former, she goes to the house of two Lions Club board members, Susan and Frank, to be interviewed. They ask her some questions about herself. When Frank asks her where she’s from, she specifically says she was born in Sydney, but Frank continues to push until she tells him that her father is Jamaican, and her mother is Guyanese. Frank mishears “Guyana” as “Ghana,” and insists that Maxine’s mother must be African, even after Maxine tells him that she is from the West Indies. Maxine is quietly furious, but she gets through the rest of the interview.
Maxine’s interactions with the Lions Club members is essentially a barrage of microaggressions, with the couple prying into her heritage and assuming they know better than her about her own parents’ homelands. The interaction is an example of how Black people are often held back by casual racism when they attempt to seek opportunities for themselves: although Maxine succeeds in the interview, she has to grin and bear racism in order to so, an obstacle that her white competitors do not face.
Themes
Maxine then attends the public speaking competition. She recognizes most of her opponents from debate club and knows they are not strong speakers, so she’s relatively confident in her victory. However, a nervous-looking goth girl and her father, who is immediately greeted by the judges, walk in. The girl’s speech is extremely poorly delivered, but she wins regardless; both her and her father seem extremely embarrassed, as it’s clear her victory was the result of the judges sucking up to the girl’s father. Afterwards, the girl and her father approach Maxine, and the father tells her that she was the best speaker there and encourages her to continue doing public speaking.
The fact that Maxine loses at the public speaking competition is an obvious example of white privilege. The goth girl who wins is clearly not as skilled as Maxine, but the behavior of the judges towards the girl’s father suggest that they are from an influential family, hence the girl’s victory. However, the reactions of both the girl and her father suggest that they, too, are unhappy about this. Although the father does not publicly dispute the victory, his comments towards Maxine, said loudly around the judges and other contestants, suggests that he is deliberately trying to draw attention to her talent.
Themes
