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Chapter 1
Themes
and Colors
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
Bordeaux and Cleopatra arrive in Australia in 1976. They ride out to Chatswood, in awe of the bright sky and neat suburbs. However, they are unnerved by the name of their accommodation: the Man Friday Hotel, referring to the indigenous cannibal in Robinson Crusoe who decides to become the title character’s servant. Cleopatra is especially doubtful. The two of them go to buy wine and are referred by the shopkeeper to the cask wine; having never seen this type of wine before, they do not realize that the shopkeeper has sent them to the poor-quality wine. When Cleopatra goes to grab cheese, she is shocked to see that the brand is named “coon,” a slur for Black people. During the week at the hotel, the couple is filled with uncertainty. A few months later, the couple that encouraged them to move to Australia moves away.
Bordeaux and Cleopatra’s first few days in Australia are full of red flags: references to racist literature, racial profiling by shopkeepers, and the casual use of slurs in food brands. Notably, although these details stand out painfully to the Clarkes, these things seem to be normal in Australia, suggesting that the country may indeed be a hostile place for Black people. The fact that their friends soon move to another city underscores how, unlike in Britain where the Clarkes at least had community, they will be left to navigate the racism in Australia all by themselves.
Active
Themes
Eighteen months after moving to Australia, the couple buy a house in Kellyville, a sleepy suburb on the edge of Sydney. The Clarkes are not the only immigrants to move to the area, but they move directly into the main neighborhood rather than on the village outskirts, prompting curiosity and gossip from their white neighbors—although the area was partially settled by men of African descent during Australia’s original colonization. Despite their rather unwelcoming surroundings, Bordeaux and Cleopatra have three children in Kellyville: Cecilia, Maxine, and Bronson. Although the early 1980s see race riots in the United Kingdom, the Clarkes are distanced from this and are able to raise their family in relative peace.
The life that the Clarkes make in Kellyville show the quietly difficult tradeoffs they’ve made by moving to Australia. By moving into a majority-white suburb, the family has opened themselves up to scrutiny and gossip, and they lack the community they had in Britain. However, moving to Australia has also spared them the much more visible and violent racism breaking out in Britain. This shows how, no matter what the Clarkes do, they will face racism: it is only a matter of what form it will take.
Active
Themes
As a young child, Maxine largely enjoys a typical and idyllic childhood with activities such as tadpole-collecting in the nearby creek and buying produce from the local farmers. The Clarkes live close to a fundamentalist religious group known as the Exclusive Brethren, and although Maxine’s family is atheist, she finds herself relating to the Brethren children, who, like her, stand out in Kellyville’s small community. On Friday nights, the Brethren followers preach around town, with the head preacher reminding people that “The Lord can see everything.” Maxine muses that nobody knows what the Lord is meant to have seen in a community as conservative as Kellyville.
Active
Themes
