Summary
Clarke recounts the extra-curricular activities she and her siblings sign up for as children. At YMCA gymnastics, Clarke’s German instructor singles Clarke out for not tucking in her bottom when standing in certain positions, as though it is something Clarke has control over. She grows self-conscious that her bottom doesn’t conform, that it is always sticking out. The instructor’s voice haunts her, and she invents excuses not to attend. When her mother finds out, she tells Clarke she has a nice bottom, and that she inherited it from her. But she gives Clarke the opportunity to stop attending. Instead, Clarke wears baggy clothes rather than a leotard, and the German instructor stops commenting.
Though her parents raise her without religion, Clarke prays in private to God. One day, He seems to grant her wishes: a lighter patch of skin has appeared on her cheek. She realizes she is turning whiter, and feels guilty for having wanted this. She comments that she only wanted to be white so she could be like everyone else she knew. Concerned Clarke has vitiligo, her mother takes her to a dermatologist. In the car on the ride home, Clarke’s mother says it’s probably nothing, just stretch marks because she has been growing so much lately. But at home, Clarke looks through the pamphlets her mother brought home and reads about vitiligo. She is delighted to imagine the skin disease spreading over her body, turning her whiter.
The light patches don’t spread. At school, they become the source of new taunts Clarke receives, along with the nickname Patch. Clarke’s mother puts chocolate-colored foundation on Clarke’s face. She ends up spreading the brown onto library books and her things, unable to stop touching her face. The librarian reprimands her, and kids tease her for being both brown and dirty. When she complains to a school authority figure about being called Golliwog—a child’s doll character based on Black minstrel caricatures—she is told she’s too sensitive.
In grade two, she and the other kids play Catch and Kiss, a game in which the girls run from boys, who tag them out of the game by kissing their cheeks. Clarke believes herself to be very good at the game, always a winner. Eventually, she wants a kind boy named Lewis to kiss her, so she presents her cheek to him and another boy pushes them together. The playground erupts in taunts, saying Lewis is now tainted and will catch Clarke’s disease. He looks at her in anger. Clarke collects herself in the smelly toilets, which become her safe haven.
Clarke comments that in 1988, race relations in Australia were taking a turn for the worse, with xenophobic and racist rhetoric and policy gaining ground in the political sphere. On TV, Clarke sees Aboriginal people leading a protest against celebrating Australia’s bicentenary celebrations—the anniversary of when Europeans came to Australia and established it as a British colony. Clarke’s mother explains this, since information about Indigenous Australians is largely left out of Clarke’s school curricula, which teaches Captain Cook’s discovery of Australia as a pioneering triumph over “violent and hostile” “Aborigines.”
For Colonial Day, a major part of the celebrations, students dress in prison outfits like convicts brought early to the colony, or in gentleman’s and gentlewoman’s finery. Clarke is conflicted about taking part in the parade, having seen images of shackled Aboriginal men in a book at the library. While walking in her costume, Clarke pulls her bonnet low and thinks about the land beneath her feet for the first time. She knows her parents come from a far distant place, but she feels “awe at knowing [she is] definitely on black country.” The knowledge alters something fundamental inside her.
After tinkering for a while, Clarke’s father builds from found and salvaged bikes two new bicycles for Clarke and her brother, Bronson. They are excited to show them off at the local BMX track, where they meet with Jennifer and her brother. They have fun riding for a while, but a group of white boys shout “blackie” at them, trying to make them leave. Clarke’s hairs stand on end when a rock hits her back and the pack of boys come close to her; in the confusion, Bronson skins his knee and her friends disappear. She leaves with Bronson, hoping the McGuires will apologize for not having defended her and her brother. But they don’t acknowledge it, and Clarke doesn’t feel as close to Jennifer as she once did.
In grade five, Clarke’s afro becomes the ideal target for bullies’ spitballs. A boy called Derek repeatedly fires spitballs at her, trying to arouse her attention by calling her “blackie.” She tells on him to her teacher, Mrs. Hird, who says, “Well, that’s what you are. You can call him whitey if you like.” She says that’s racist, having recently learned the word from her father while watching press coverage of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in South Africa. Mrs. Hird says how dare you use that word, and sends Clarke back to her seat.
Clarke isn’t sure what to do; Hird is a favorite teacher. Instead of telling on her to her parents, Clarke stays in Hird’s class until the end of the semester, seething with hatred. She fantasizes about hurting her, or poisoning her. To fight back against the bullying, she has learned to hit back with cruelty that mocks the bullies’ intelligence, calling them “retarded.” She earns a reputation as a black child with a behavioral issue and is often made to stand at lunch against the wall outside the principal’s office, publicly shamed.
Analysis
Clarke continues building on the major themes of everyday racism with the anecdote about her ignorant gymnastics coach. Ignoring her father’s semi-joking warning that Black girls don’t do gymnastics, Clarke signs up for a class at the YMCA only to find herself repeatedly singled out because her body shape doesn’t conform to the white European standard that the coach is used to. Too young to understand that this authority figure is demanding something impossible of her, Clarke internalizes the coach’s judgment and assumes her naturally protruding bottom is the problem; she envies the “normal” flat-bottomed white girls, wishing she could be like them.
Clarke builds further on the theme of internalized racism with the story of how her vitiligo develops. A skin condition that often has no clear cause, vitiligo leaves Clarke with significant patches of skin where there is less brown pigment. In an instance of situational irony, the onset of the condition delights Clarke, who has been praying in secret to God, asking him to turn her white; Clarke is so often singled out for being a minority that she wishes to change races and blend in with the dominant ethnic group.
Everyday and overt forms of racism continue to haunt Clarke as she moves through primary school, whether it is being compared to the Golliwog minstrel doll that was once a popular children’s toy or being left out of the Catch and Kiss game because the white children stigmatize her with the racist tropes of being dirty and diseased. In an instance of situational irony, Clarke recounts how the disgusting public toilets of her primary-school playground became a place of refuge from constant social alienation.
Clarke also comments on how institutional racism becomes more of an issue in 1988, with increased traction for anti-Indigenous and anti-immigrant political rhetoric coinciding with Clarke’s broadening awareness of Australia’s colonial history. Although still a young child, Clarke's sense of camaraderie with Indigenous Australians leads her to feel deep ambivalence about taking part in celebrations related to Colonial Day and the two-hundred-year anniversary of the colony. Now officially called Australia Day, the date that marks the country’s founding by the British has been dubbed Invasion Day or Survival Day by Indigenous opponents of the holiday.
As Clarke gets older, she discovers that hostility from racists becomes more overt and threatening. At the local BMX track with her brother, Clarke is disturbed when the usual taunts from bullies lead to rocks being thrown her way; suddenly, the racist boys are crowding her and Bronson, implicitly threatening them with physical harm if they don’t leave the track. The incident leaves Clarke shaken, making her rethink her friendship with the McGuires, who she cannot trust to defend her in such moments of real danger.
In grade five, Clarke begins fighting back against the constant bullying. However, when she informs Mrs. Hird of Derek’s use of the slur “blackie,” Hird sides with Derek by pretending that the word is merely a description and not imbued with race hate. When Clarke points out that it is a racist term, and that calling him “whitey” like Hird suggests wouldn’t do anything but perpetuate the hostility, Hird reprimands Clarke for saying the word “racist.” In this instance of situational irony, Hird sees it as a greater offense to call out racism than to be overtly racist by shouting slurs.
