The Hate Race By Maxine Beneba Clarke Paperback 0733632289 9780733632280 Short Stories The Hate Race Against anything I had ever been told was possible, I was turning white. On the surface of my skin, a miracle was quietly brewing .Suburban Australia. Sweltering heat. Three bedroom blonde brick. Family of five. Beat up Ford Falcon. Vegemite on toast. Maxine Beneba Clarkes life is just like all the other Aussie kids on her street.Except for this one, glaring, inescapably obvious thing.
The hate race book summary
This is a really important book and although it s situated in Australia and delivers a particular critique of race relations there we all have something to learn from it This memoir is equally heartbreaking and powerful as it details the impact of repeated moments of casual racism inflicted on one child in Australia in the 80s and 90s I was most disturbed by the behaviour of adults in positions of power protection and acting as role models who dismissed the racism of children as teasing and thus were complicit in its perpetuation over generations The parallels between my 90s childhood and Clarke s made me uncomfortably aware of my own privilege and that s the real power and significance of this memoir 9780733632280 This book is quite frankly amazing 9780733632280 Every Australian should read this An insight into the lives of the minorities and the impact of casual racism 9780733632280 Maxine Beneba Clarke and I grew up at the same time and share many childhood experiences the desire for a REAL Cabbage Patch doll devouring Baby Sitters Club books crushing over Luke Perry watching Degrassi Junior High We re both the children of immigrants and were bookish nerdy kids completely hopeless at sport But my childhood had a privilege of innocence that she was denied This book details some of the casual overt and institutional racism Clarke experienced as a child in Australia in the 80s and 90s It s eye opening revealing and heartbreaking The most shocking to me aspects of her account is the behaviour of the adults teachers parents counsellors who were all complicit and excused or defended or ignored the horrendous racist behaviour remarks taunts Clarke encountered 9780733632280 I feel really bad only giving this book 3 stars For the purpose of highlighting racism in Australia and the harrowing effects this book does it s job For whatever reason the rest of the book didn t click for me Being almost the exact same age as Maxine growing up in Australia going to public school during the 80 s and 90 s I can attest that the playground was a minefield I was never personally affected by direct racism well not to my knowledge even though I was an extremely shy migrant kid in a sea of predominantly white Anglo faces I do admit to witnessing some objectionable behaviours towards others maybe I was able to blend in and therefore was never in the direct firing line but I do remember staying quiet and avoiding the spotlight being a strategic tactic in aiding my invisibility I give props to Maxine in not backing down in rising up despite the horrific abuse at the hands of her hostile attackers it never detracted her from following her academic pursuits if anything it probably fueled her even I believe the love and support from a loving family helped in doing so Being of Afro Caribbean descent she wasn t able to just blend in making her a target The only thing making her a standout the difference in the colour of her skin My heart ached every time an insult or derogatory comment was hurled her way This is a very personal account and it s shameful that Australia at that time was so unabashedly and openly racist and I feel gutted that she had to endure this kind of treatment The fact that the teachers were virtually powerless in stopping the abuse would have felt all the soul destroying As much as this book does a brilliant job of uncovering the ugly side of racism I felt the book ended too abruptly and I wanted to see of her journey outside of her childhood and high school days 9780733632280
Incredibly upsetting and heart breaking A book I would recommend to all Australians 9780733632280 If racism is a shortcoming of the heart then experiencing it is an assault on the mind In this memoir Maxine Beneba Clarke writes of the racism she has experienced both as a child and now as an adult Here in contemporary Australia a country which prides itself on its multiculturalism on its acceptance of people of all hues races and religions from around the world It s a shame that the reality has never really matched the ideal.
The hate race audiobook Maxine Beneba Clarke is an Australian Her parents are of West Indian descent and emigrated to Australia from London during the 1970s I read this book last month and have been thinking about it ever since thinking about the number of ways in which we other people How people are differentiated on the basis of skin colour sex religion sexual preference Differentiated and often discriminated against because of characteristics which are seen to be different and somehow less worthy characteristics that are part of human DNA What is it about difference however it is identified that brings out a distressingly common us and them response What is it in our parenting teaching and community that enables racism to flourish What are we afraid of But this is Maxine Beneba Clarke s story a story of specific experiences not a generalised observation of othering And the recounting of the specific makes it personal and uncomfortable And it made me angry So what do we do now Where to next Australia There are myriad ways of telling it Jennifer Cameron Smith 9780733632280 Brilliant memoir focused on racism in Australia Covering Maxine s childhood in Sydney and book ended by recent experiences with her own children now she is a mother The Hate Race is told through the lens of racist incidents and experiences that shaped her life There are happy memories but the aim seems to be to show how the cumulative weight of a racist society changes a person How it shaped what a little girl thought about herself how the pain of bullying manifested on her skin how it impacted every experience and interaction I learned to stay quiet I learned that nobody much cared I learned that it was probably my fault anyway and that what they were doing to me was perfectly okay This is how it alters us This is how we change Clarke s prose is beautiful with a lyrical poetic quality without being unnecessarily flowery There is lightness and humour woven throughout even amongst some of the really awful incidents she experienced A memorable one was the African tribal dancing which I won t say any about it needs to be read in context 9780733632280 I m rather conflicted about this book I live just a few suburbs away from Maxine I arrived here in my teens having been through a revolution war and a harrowing escape from Iran.
Poetry the hate race pdf Even as a migrant teenager with dark features and an accent I don t believe I experienced the level of casual racism that Maxine did Maybe having gone through so much already I wasn t willing to settle for any bullying Maybe our growing network of Iranian families who formed the basis of our friends shielded me from the effects Maybe my exotic differences did not extend to Maxine s Or maybe like Baghita the comments washed over me easier I don t have a clear answer I just know reading Maxine s experiences I couldn t shake the feeling she leans too readily on the racism card But then again The Hate Race makes me question myself in other ways Maybe I m part of the problem Maybe having been exposed to casual racism both directly and indirectly I ve grown accustomed to it to the point that it s stopped registering with me And maybe this is no longer a good thing 9780733632280 A powerful and sad book about growing up as a person of colour in modern day Australia Clarke brilliantly illustrate the constant drip of racism that she was exposed to throughout her school years and emphasises the impacts of the full gamut of prejudice from the vicious explicit hate through to the well meaning but identity erasing ignorance The writing is clear and straightforward conveying the story without much adornment besides the semi regular refrains reminding the reader that they re reading a self consciously structured story this is how I tell it or else what s a story for which I found a little repetitive and distracting But the power here is in the story an urgent necessary and powerful story that will hopefully be widely read 9780733632280 Against anything I had ever been told was possible I was turning white On the surface of my skin a miracle was quietly brewing Suburban Australia Sweltering heat Three bedroom blonde brick Family of five Beat up Ford Falcon Vegemite on toast Maxine Beneba Clarke s life is just like all the other Aussie kids on her street.
Poetry the hate race pdf Except for this one glaring inescapably obvious thing The Hate RaceMaxine Beneba Clarke is an Australian writer and slam poetry champion of Afro Caribbean descent She is the author of the poetry collections Gil Scott Heron is on Parole Picaro Press 2009 and Nothing Here Needs Fixing Picaro Press 2013 the title poem of which won the 2013 Ada Cambridge Poetry Prize Her debut short story collection Foreign Soil won the 2013 Victorian Premiers Award for an Unpublished Manuscript and will be published by Hachette Australia in early 2014.
The hate race free pdf As a spoken word performer Maxines work has been delivered on stages and airways and in festivals across the country including at the Melbourne Writers Festival 2008 2010 2013 Melbourne International Arts Festival 2012 the Arts Centre 2009 and the Melbo Maxine Beneba Clarke is an Australian writer and slam poetry champion of Afro Caribbean descent She is the author of the poetry collections Gil Scott Heron is on Parole Picaro Press 2009 and Nothing Here Needs Fixing Picaro Press 2013 the title poem of which won the 2013 Ada Cambridge Poetry Prize Her debut short story collection Foreign Soil won the 2013 Victorian Premier s Award for an Unpublished Manuscript and will be published by Hachette Australia in early 2014.
The hate race audiobook As a spoken word performer Maxine s work has been delivered on stages and airways and in festivals across the country including at the Melbourne Writers Festival 2008 2010 2013 Melbourne International Arts Festival 2012 the Arts Centre 2009 and the Melbourne Jazz Fringe Festival 2013 Maxine s short fiction essays and poetry have been published in numerous publications including Overland the Age Big Issue Cordite Poetry Review Harvest Voiceworks Going Down Swinging Mascara Meanjin Unusual Work and Peril.
The great race 2 jeu Maxine has conducted poetry classes and workshops for many organisations including RMIT The Victorian Association for the Teaching of English VATE Writers Victoria Kensington Neighbourhood House and the Society of Women Writers Vic site_link..
The hate race by maxine beneba clarke She has been poetry editor of the academic journal Social Alternatives 2012 and spoken word editor for Overland literary journal 2011 12