The Hate U Give
Written by Angie Thomas
Text Style: Novel
Finished reading: 12th April, 2020

The novel ‘The Hate U Give’ is an important representation of the outrageous racial prejudice that takes form in society this very day. The novel follows the life of Starr Carter, a young sixteen-year-old who is caught between two contrastingly different worlds and experiences the harshest of tragedies life has to offer far too young. Starr witnesses the murder of her best friend, Natasha, at the cruel age of 10 in a drive-by shooting in her gang-ridden neighbourhood, Garden Heights. After the apparent danger that Starr was put in, her parents decide to send her and her siblings to a majoritively white high school an hour away from their home. As she learns to cope with her white school and black neighbourhood she struggles with her identity as the pressures of racial prejudice take a toll on her behaviour. The re-kindling of a childhood friend, Khalil Harris, happens during a party that Starr feels out of place, they quickly connect but are forced to leave the party due to a shooting occuring. In a racially-prejudiced-fueled turn of events, Khalil is shot 3 times by a white officer, who pulled them over for a broken tail-light. The decision for Starr speaking up and achieving justice is reluctant due to the result of racial prejudice and social oppression that the black race has faced throughout her life and the fear of what could happen to her.

The protagonist, Starr Carter is a very interesting character I thought due to the realisation of how severely racial prejudice can affect someone’s everyday life in the modern-day. As a black student from the ‘hood’ who attends Williamson Prep, a predominantly white school, Starr develops different identities for the different social settings calling herself ‘Williamson Starr’ and ‘Garden heights Starr. This is a result of the fear she faces of the pre-conceived ideas that the white community holds of her race. She knows the harsh reality that as a black girl from the ‘hood’ she can be stereotyped so very fast by a single word and as a result, she is determined to not give them a chance, however, this leads to conflicting identities within her self. She lacks the opportunity to fully express her self and be her own person whilst she attends Williamson prep, she recites that “Williamson Starr doesn’t use slang… she doesn’t say it, even if her white friends do. Slang makes them cool. Slang makes her “hood”.”. I find this so disturbing because although “slang” could seem a ‘trivial’ thing, it is her culture and her upbringing and is literally apart of who she is and the fact that the preconceived ideas a white society have constructed of her race can shame her for saying one thing but praise it if they say it themself is just sad. The pressures she faces to battle the stereotype that she is a ‘hood’ girl is so seemingly unrelatable for me, as a white girl living in a heavily white community however I can empathise this feeling as I understand the atrocity of this but cannot necessarily share them on a personal level. The problems she faces with societal pressures at school are replicated when she goes back to her own neighbourhood where she now feels like a fake, she is ‘too white’ to be there but ‘too black’ for her school. These pressures are created by stereotypes of race and how they are ‘supposed’ to act, the fear of being categorised and prejudged by both forces Starr to be stuck in the middle and never content. Once gaining a voice throughout the movement and the seeking of Khalil’s justice, she embraces who she is without allowing the too present racial prejudice to affect what she does and who she is. This development of character is seen in her neighbourhood, when she is receiving support for her movement for Khalil and realises “The best part though? It’s never “All right now, Big Mav’s daughter who works in the store.” It’s always Starr.“, she is being seen for her rather than just somebody’s daughter which she was known as before when she was afraid to be who she was. I think that this coming of age moment for her is such an important moment because she is finally accepting herself for herself and is refusing the malicious prejudged ideas of her race to conflict with her own actions, basically just a big f*ck you to racial prejudice.

The victim of the police shooting, Khalil Harris, is portrayed as a controversial character. The murder of Khalil occurs the night of a neighbourhood party he attends , which he sees Starr, gunshots go off and immediately both him and Starr bolt off and are on their way home. They are pulled over by the officer ‘one-fifteen’ who claims to have done so because of a broken tail-light, he is asked to exit the vehicle and with a simple question of reassurance “Starr are you okay?” leads to the fatal shooting of Khalil. The death of the 16 year old boy is justified by society with claims of him being a ‘gang member’, ‘drug dealer’ and ‘armed with a gun’. The society that condoned his death because of these claims are brainwashed with the idea that such accusations and pre-conceived ideas justify the death of a young boy and that as stated by one of Starr’s ‘good friends’ “ “He was probably gonna end up dead anyway.” because of his position in society. The media chose to focus on such aspects of his life rather than supported facts and evidence such as he was in fact unarmed and not apart of a gang but so quickly believed the worst in order to reassure themself that the white officer did what he ‘had to do’. I think this all stems from fear. The officer shot Khalil because he already had a prejudged idea of a black person being ‘dangerous’ and somehow justified in his head that because of the colour of his skin it made it ok, because you do not just shoot someone, especially a kid, for opening a car door, you just don’t. Starr’s uncle, a black officer, shortly after the incident converses with Starr’s father and unknowingly conforms to society’s stereotype of a black kid by telling Starr’s father to see from the officers perspective and how he felt ‘threatened’. This backfires on him, “You said it yourself, he thought Khalil was a drug dealer,” Daddy says. “A thug. Why he assumed that though? What? By looking at Khalil? Explain that, Detective.”. This acknowledgment that although Khalil was involved in drug-related activities yes, the officer had no knowledge of this when he shot him, he merely shot him because he was black and looked like he could be a drug dealer. Starr’s attorney and fellow activist, makes it aware at Khalil’s funeral by holding up a hairbrush and telling them,” “That’s the so-called gun,” Ms. Ofrah explains. “Officer Cruise claims he saw it in the car door, and he assumed Khalil was reaching for it. The handle was thick enough, black enough, for him to assume it was a gun.” “And Khalil was black enough,” Daddy adds. A hairbrush.”. The key words being ‘black enough’.

” Seven freezes. He turns Chris’s mix off and slows down.“What you turn the music off for?” Sekani asks.“Shut up,” Seven hisses. We stop at a red light. A Riverton Hills patrol car pulls up beside us. Seven straightens up and stares ahead, barely blinking and gripping the steering wheel. His eyes move a little like he wants to look at the cop car. He swallows hard. Keep your hands visible.No sudden moves.Only speak when spoken to. ” This is how Starr and her brothers react to a cop car pulling up beside them. Law enforcement that is supposed to be there to protect and make them feel ‘safe’ yet, instead installs fear and discomfort for these youth and clearly not just them but the rest of the black community. I felt angry reading this. This fear is a result of years of oppression, racial profiling and overall racial prejudice, this is something that scares me because a black woman wrote this novel, which means this is first-hand evidence to how much damage racial prejudice can have on the real lives of people. I think this book scarily highlights the reality that people in this modern-day face, even though we all like to claim to have drastically moved on from the past, we clearly have not nearly as much as we thought. This is because it is easy for a person who has never experienced first-hand racism to compare slavery vs today and think ‘wow how great it is now!’ but it is the deeply embedded, preconceived ideas that cause the most harm in this day and they are clearly very apparent still. A message I a took from this realisation is that unless we choose to look, it all seems dandy and civilised but with this ignorance comes severe damage such as the effects that racial prejudice had on the lives of Khalil, Starr, her family, etc.

The title ‘The Hate U Give’ is an acronym for T.H.U.G. The name of this novel is heavily based off the philosophy of famous rapper, Tupac Shakur, who had a tattoo with the acronym THUG LIFE which he explained stands for ‘The Hate U Give Little Infants F*cks Everyone’. This basically means that the vicious cycle of racial prejudice, violence, oppression will forever go on as long as nothing changes. The racism, the profiling, the shootings, all the ‘Hate’ that is fed to the black race as ‘infants’, children and adults end up, well, ‘F*cking’ everybody in the form of violence, grief, separation, tension, riots. This title is perfect for the novel because it puts this philosophy so well into a story so that everyone to see it. In the novel Starrs father tells her, “That’s the hate they’re giving us, baby, a system designed against us. That’s Thug Life.”. Meaning, that the ‘hate’ they are given is used to set them up to fail, this is linked to Khalil’s death, who’s death is justified because of his drug dealing, which he was forced to do to earn money for his sick grandmother, because of the lack of options they and him had. Then he is punished for that, for the system and hate that they designed and fed to him from the day he was born.