Australian stories ยท Review and study notes
The Hate Race by Maxine Beneba Clarke: review and study notes
A memoir of a childhood in suburban Sydney that is, in almost every way, ordinary: blonde-brick house, Ford Falcon, Vegemite toast. Except that Maxine is Black, and her classmates, teachers and neighbours never let her forget it.
The Listening ShelfUpdated 3 October 20264 min read
This page once held an earlier review by a different writer. This is a new page: a plain guide to the book, written from the book itself and its publisher's record, not a personal verdict.
In this piece
The short answer
The Hate Race (Hachette, 2016) is Maxine Beneba Clarke's memoir of growing up as one of the few Black children in Kellyville, in Sydney's north-west, in the 1980s and 1990s. It traces how everyday racism, from classmates, teachers and strangers, shaped her childhood, her body and her sense of belonging, and it is bookended by scenes of her as a parent facing the same abuse. It won the Multicultural NSW Award at the 2017 NSW Premier's Literary Awards and was shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize.
What it is about
Clarke's parents, of Jamaican and Guyanese descent, met in England and moved to Australia in the 1970s, after the White Australia policy had been dismantled. They settled in Kellyville and raised three children. From preschool on, Maxine is singled out: called names, excluded, told by adults that it is just children being honest. The book follows her through primary and high school, through the slow realisation of what is happening to her and why, and through the ways it marks her, including skin conditions she connects to the stress of those years.
What makes it more than a catalogue of cruelty is its honesty about her own part. In one of the hardest chapters, Maxine turns the same kind of racist taunts on another girl to win approval from the boys who bully her, and is sickened by it. It is also, as its publisher says, funny in places, and full of the suburban pop culture of its era.
How it is built
- Prologue. Clarke, now an adult in Melbourne, is abused by a man in a passing car while walking with her young child. It frames everything that follows: this is not history.
- Part One (chapters 1 to 11). Family history, from the Atlantic slave trade to the Windrush generation in Britain to Kellyville, and Maxine's childhood up to about 13.
- Part Two (chapters 12 to 24). High school: friendships, first boyfriends, escalating harassment, anonymous threats, and her parents' marriage ending.
- Epilogue. Her son's first day back at school, and a closing line about her children as "descendants of those unbroken".
Clarke tells it in her family's West Indian storytelling tradition, with a refrain that recurs through the book: "This is how it happened, or else what's a story for." It signals that this is a crafted story, shaped like fiction, not a court transcript.
Main themes
- Everyday racism. The small, constant comments and exclusions, many from adults, and the cumulative damage they do.
- Overt racism. Name-calling, threats and physical attacks, and how institutions respond, or do not.
- Institutional racism. The schools that ignore or downplay what is happening; the history, from the White Australia policy onward, behind the attitudes.
- Internalised racism. A child praying to become white; a teenager turning racism on someone else to belong.
- Belonging and identity. Being Australian-born and still asked where you are "really" from.
- Family and heritage. Pride in ancestors who survived slavery and migration, and the tension between generations.
- The body. Stress showing up on the skin, and the self-consciousness that follows.
- Indigenous Australia. Maxine's growing awareness, through events like the 1988 Bicentenary protests, that her country was built on dispossession.
Questions for study and discussion
- How does the Prologue change the way we read the childhood chapters that follow?
- What does the refrain "This is how it happened, or else what's a story for" suggest about memory and truth in memoir?
- Why do you think Clarke includes the episode in which Maxine bullies another girl? What does it add?
- How do the adults in the book (teachers, a principal, coaches, other parents) respond to racism, and what does that show about institutions?
- How does Clarke connect national events and politics to everyday life in Kellyville?
- What is the effect of ending with her own children? Is the ending hopeful?
The Reading Australia unit linked below has lesson plans and activities for teachers.
On stage and in audio
Clarke adapted the book as a one-woman play, staged at Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre in February 2024 with Zahra Newman, and reviewed warmly by The Guardian among others. Newman also reads the audiobook, about seven and a quarter hours. Neither of the two Libby catalogues we check held it, so ask your library about BorrowBox or buy it outright.
One more piece of the book's history: Clarke withdrew it from planned US publication by a Simon & Schuster imprint after learning the same imprint was to publish a book by Milo Yiannopoulos. "It's a book about hate speech; how could I let them publish it?" she said.
Common questions
What is The Hate Race about?
It is Maxine Beneba Clarke's memoir of growing up Black in Kellyville, in Sydney's north-west, in the 1980s and 1990s, and of the everyday and overt racism she faced from classmates, teachers and strangers.
Is The Hate Race a true story?
Yes. It is a memoir, though Clarke tells it with the shaping of a storyteller, signalled by her refrain "This is how it happened, or else what's a story for."
Who reads The Hate Race audiobook?
Zahra Newman, who also starred in Clarke's 2024 stage adaptation at the Malthouse Theatre. It runs about seven and a quarter hours.
What awards did The Hate Race win?
The Multicultural NSW Award at the 2017 NSW Premier's Literary Awards. It was also shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize.