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Selina
Carlita is Maxine’s preschool bully. She regularly expresses her disgust at Maxine’s brown skin, which causes Maxine to realize for the first time that being Black is seen as being undesirable by many Australians. She also bullies other students, as seen with her harassment of Bella for having a lisp. It is heavily implied that Carlita learns her racism from her mother, as the latter calls Maxine a “nasty little black girl” when Maxine attempts to confront Carlita about her bad attitude.
Carlita Allen Quotes in The Hate Race
The The Hate Race quotes below are all either spoken by Carlita Allen or refer to Carlita Allen. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
Carlita Allen leaned towards me. ‘You,’ she whispered loudly, ‘are brown.’
It wasn’t as if I hadn’t realized this very obvious difference between our family and almost all of the other people we knew. My skin colour was simply a concrete matter of fact, much like the sky was blue. Carlita was right: I was brown. But until that very moment, holding my mother’s hand under the mulberry tree’s enormous fan-like leaves, it never occurred to me that being brown, rather than the pale pinkish of most of my friends and neighbors, was in any way relevant to anything.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
My hand grew sweaty in Carlita’s as we walked side by side up the path towards the preschool buildings. I felt like I would burst with the unfairness of it—as if the air around me was pushing hard into my skin, bearing down. When we reached the classroom door, I dropped Carlita’s hand and looked back at her mother. Mrs Allen was still standing halfway up the front path, staring in our direction.
Chapter 5
Quotes
‘Here it is!’ Carlita, whose designated bag hook was stationed next to mine, wrenched the doll from inside my bag and waved it above her head. ‘Look! Maxine has a brown doll! Look at it! It’s so ugly!’
The other kids unpacking their bags in the cloakroom turned to look. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the exclamation of disgust.
Susana, another of the girls in my class, rescued the doll from Carlita. ‘Of course it’s brown,’ she said, looking it over. ‘It’s the one that was grown especially for her. It’s her kid.’
‘I’ve never seen a brown one before,’ another girl said. ‘Pass it over here!’
[…]
‘It’s ugly,’ Carlita repeated.
‘Go away, Carlita,” Susana said firmly.
Get the entire The Hate Race LitChart as a printable PDF.
Carlita Allen Quotes in The Hate Race
The The Hate Race quotes below are all either spoken by Carlita Allen or refer to Carlita Allen. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
Carlita Allen leaned towards me. ‘You,’ she whispered loudly, ‘are brown.’
It wasn’t as if I hadn’t realized this very obvious difference between our family and almost all of the other people we knew. My skin colour was simply a concrete matter of fact, much like the sky was blue. Carlita was right: I was brown. But until that very moment, holding my mother’s hand under the mulberry tree’s enormous fan-like leaves, it never occurred to me that being brown, rather than the pale pinkish of most of my friends and neighbors, was in any way relevant to anything.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
My hand grew sweaty in Carlita’s as we walked side by side up the path towards the preschool buildings. I felt like I would burst with the unfairness of it—as if the air around me was pushing hard into my skin, bearing down. When we reached the classroom door, I dropped Carlita’s hand and looked back at her mother. Mrs Allen was still standing halfway up the front path, staring in our direction.
Chapter 5
Quotes
‘Here it is!’ Carlita, whose designated bag hook was stationed next to mine, wrenched the doll from inside my bag and waved it above her head. ‘Look! Maxine has a brown doll! Look at it! It’s so ugly!’
The other kids unpacking their bags in the cloakroom turned to look. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the exclamation of disgust.
Susana, another of the girls in my class, rescued the doll from Carlita. ‘Of course it’s brown,’ she said, looking it over. ‘It’s the one that was grown especially for her. It’s her kid.’
‘I’ve never seen a brown one before,’ another girl said. ‘Pass it over here!’
[…]
‘It’s ugly,’ Carlita repeated.
‘Go away, Carlita,” Susana said firmly.
