Angie Thomas’S The Hate You Give Passage Analysis

In the novel, The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas, the main character Starr attempts to balance her life between the poor neighborhood she lives in and her suburban prep school. She feels tension trying to navigate the boundary between who she is and how she is portrayed by her surroundings. The first-person narrative in the book reveals Starr’s internal conflict with balancing her identity, thus helping the readers to understand what it is like for African Americans to maintain their identities while living in a society where you must conform to others’ ideals.

From the beginning of the novel, it is clear that Starr is trying to balance two versions of herself. She switches her vernacular based on her environment, because she is not fully comfortable with either versions of herself. When she is at a party in her neighborhood, she feels out of place. She can’t relate to what the neighborhood kids are talking about around her and struggles to try to fit in. Her friend Kenya even calls her out for not coming out to parties in the neighborhood and acting like she is ashamed of Garden Heights. Kenya serves as an important aspect of Starr’s life because she is who seems to keep her connected to her neighborhood. Starr starts to compare how she feels in her two different environments with her thoughts of, “At Williamson I don't have to keep it cool- I’m cool by default” (12) and “I have to earn coolness at Garden Heights” (12). She knows that being one of the few black kids that attend her school automatically makes her cool, yet she still has to adjust her behavior to fit in. Most of her neighbors are black, yet most of her classmates are white. She is torn between choosing to be too black while at school and too white while at home since both of her environments operate on two contrasting behavioral codes.

The first-person narrative helps to feel like you are observing the story in 3D as it unfolds, and automatically know how Starr is feeling without having to guess from her actions. Williamson Starr does not speak about where she is from, this is out of fear of being labeled as “ghetto’. She says “I choose every word carefully and make sure I pronounce them well. I can never, ever let anyone think I’m ghetto” (17). Starr is also ashamed of the other aspect of her life and is trying to figure out exactly who she is. She makes a boundary for herself, but she soon finds it hard to keep her two identities separate and crossed that boundary. At the moment she decided she had to stick for herself against racist remarks from her “close friend” Hailey, her thoughts are revealed as “All my Williamson rules go out the door, and Starr from Garden Heights shows up”( 121). The actions of Hailey as well other white kids at her school speak volumes on the way white people view issues that black people go through. The students at Williamson don’t sympathize with Khalil’s death like the black community did, yet they chose to stage a protest as an excuse to get out of class. This was a wakeup call to Starr and her refusal to join the protest despite the fact that majority of the school does, signifies that she is starting to be herself rather than change who she is to better fit in with the white society at her school. Hailey embodies a traditional view of the white community that are threatened by minorities around them. She continuously said insensitive remarks towards not only Starr but Maya as well. Chris represents the white community that is more sensitive toward the black community, he even attempts to make up for the actions of his peers. He tries to understand and adapt to the difference in their cultures instead of being ignorant towards it. Him choosing not to join in on the protest and staying to Comfort Starr speaks a lot on his character. It is very hard for Starr to be around this kind of environment and not look crazy to the white people, but also staying true to herself.

Starr switches her vernacular back and forth based on her surroundings. She switched backing and forth acting “white” then acting “black”, in order to please both sides of her identity. Certain phrases cannot be said in her neighborhood, but can be said at Williamson Prep, and vice versa. This is something that many African Americans go through when they live between two contrasting settings that has separate behavior expectations. This is not really a choice, but more of a means of survival in our society. Black identity is split between the way we perceive ourselves and the way the world views us, thus creating a sense of internal conflict. The Hate You Give is a good representation of how young African Americans struggle to maintain our black identity in an adverse society. Angie Thomas. The Hate U Give. New York, NY: Balzer + Bray, 2017. Print