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Chapter 4
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 primary school, Cecelia’s best friend is a girl named Leonie, who is the daughter of a funeral home director and who has allegedly shown Cecelia a dead body before. At Cecelia’s eighth birthday party, Leonie gifts her a Cabbage Patch Kid, which excites Cecelia greatly due to the popularity of the toys and the admiration they garner from the other girls at school. Genuine Cabbage Patch Kids bear a certification of authenticity, and girls who attempt to show off fake dolls often receive scorn from the other girls. Cecelia’s doll is white and blonde. Jealous, Maxine goes to beg for her own doll from Cleopatra, who exasperatedly tells her that it will be her birthday and Christmas present combined.
Maxine’s longing for a Cabbage Patch Kid due to it being in vogue with her peers, along with her jealousy of her older sister, is a very typical childhood experience. In this way, then, this anecdote emphasizes how, despite standing out in her community, Maxine is a normal kid like any other. However, the detail about Cecelia’s doll being white and blonde also shows how Black people are often excluded from even the most banal parts of life, such as the way many toys are designed with white children in mind.
Themes
In the sixth months leading up to Maxine’s birthday, she excitedly imagines what her doll will look like and what it will be like to show it off to her classmates. She feels that no matter what her doll looks like, she’ll love it like her own child. The night of her birthday, she sneaks out and unwraps the doll, and is dismayed to see that the doll is Black, as she thinks the girls at school will make fun of her. The next morning, she reluctantly brings the doll to school. Carlita makes fun of the doll’s appearance, but the other girls see nothing wrong with it. A girl named Susana points out that the doll is Maxine’s “child,” and thus would obviously look like her. Susana shuns Carlita, and the other girls excitedly look at Maxine’s doll.
Maxine’s reaction to her doll being Black is a striking example of how she’s learned to resent her own race. Her doll looks more like her than Cecelia’s—but it is precisely for this reason that Maxine dislikes it. However, her peers’ reactions to the doll is encouraging in that it shows that, while children are capable of learning bigotry, they are also capable of recognizing difference as a neutral or positive thing.
Themes
Maxine recounts the various social and cultural changes in Australia in the 1980s. As she grows up, she comes to know other immigrants and people of color through her parents’ social circle, expanding her knowledge of other people. She is also exposed to the Aboriginal land rights era, watching footage of Black Aboriginal Australians celebrating as their land is returned to them. When she asks Cleopatra about them, Cleopatra explains that those people are the “original Australians,” who were there before any white people. This confuses Maxine, as she’s seen very few Black people in Australia, and she hasn’t learned about this in school. She believes her mother has misunderstood something. Even so, Maxine begins to enjoy seeing more Black people in media, such as on television, in advertisements, and in music.
In addition to her own personal experiences with race, this chapter also depicts the beginning of Maxine’s learning about Aboriginal Australians. However, her skepticism at Cleopatra’s explanation due her perceived lack of Black people in Australia illustrates how thoroughly Aboriginal Australians have been erased from the national narrative. Most notably, Maxine doubts Cleopatra because she hasn’t learned about Aboriginal Australians in school, showing how Australia’s education system serves to keep children ignorant about Australia’s past.
Themes
