World's Perceiving Different Races "The Hate U Give" By Angie Thomas
In the book, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, we meet Starr Carter who’s an African American girl living in Garden Heights which is known for being a poor and black neighborhood. She goes to a school called William Prep which is mostly made up of white people. The story starts at a party that she was invited to by her friend Kenya. The two friends both share a half-brother named, Seven. At the party, Starr gets left alone while Kenya leaves to go talk to a guy. Then one of her childhood friends, Khalil comes up to talk to Starr and while having a conversation, sudden shots ranged out. Khalil offered Starr a ride and she agrees. On the way back Khalil starts explaining one of Tupac’s song and one specific quote “The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everbody”, which means whatever we give to society it bites them in the back. Then all of a sudden a police car stops them, officer one-fifteen walks up to them and tells Khalil to get out the car and he pats down Khalil and tells him not to move while he goes to his patrol car.
Khalil opens the door to check on Starr but one-fifteen shoots and kills Khalil. Then, he points his gun at Starr and tells her not to move while one-fifteen waits for back-up. It’s now finally Monday and it’s time for Starr to go back to school. She goes to see her Caucasian boyfriend named, Chris but when he tries to touch her hand, Starr moves her hand because she got a flashback to officer one-fifteen who’s also a white male. Later that day she sees on the news that Khalil has been given the title of “suspected drug dealer”. At Khalil’s funeral Starr notices people wearing “R.I.P Khalil”. A women by the name of April Ofrah talks at the funeral and says that she is with a organization called, Justice For Us and says that Khalil was unarmed. Then Kenya’s dad, “the king lord”, King walks in and lays down a grey bandana on his coffin, identifying Khalil as a king lord. Khalil’s grandmother gets mad at King and starts throwing insults.
Starr goes to Maya’s house with her other friend, Hailey and they watch the news and there’s an interview with one-fifteen. Starr get mad because one-fifteen presents Khalil as the bad guy. Starr does an interview and gives her side of the story and she says that one-fifteen was unfair. She also reveals that King was the leader of the biggest gang in Garden Heights. After the interview, someone threw a brick at Starr’s house and Maverick, Starr’s dad calls for protection from his old gang friends. On the day of the testimony, Starr had a rocky start but she knew Khalil needed her voice. Her friend Hailey said that cops did the world a favor by killing Khalil and that lead to a fight. The jury decides that officer one-fifteen is not responsible for Khalil’s death. This leads to riots at Garden Heights and Starr climbs a police car and starts chanting to honor Khalil. Starr and her friends get a ride from some former gang leaders back to her dad’s store, but then once entering the store it gets burned to the ground and they escaped. Starr’s family moves to a nicer and safer neighborhood and Starr promises to speak up for those who never got justice.
“Fifteen minutes later, I leave the police station with my mom. Both of us knew the same thing: This is gonna be some bullshit.” I picked this quote because when I read it also knew what they meant. I know in our society the justice system is still unfair. The justice system sometimes still judges a person by their race. “Y’all gotta come together somehow man,’ Daddy says. ‘For the sake of the Garden. The last thing they’d ever expect is some unity around here. Aight?” The quote shows the community is in really bad shape the gangs that have took over made the neighborhood so bad that they aren’t used to unity. Starr Carter is a African-American her parents are Maverick and Lisa Carter. When she was 10 she witnessed the death of her friend Natasha who was killed in a drive-by shooting and when her friend Khalil gets killed in front of her. All of her experiences, brings back memories.
She has two sides of her, one side is Williamson Prep and Garden Heights. Starr switches the way she talks so that her classmates won’t think of her as “ghetto.” Kenya is Seven’s half-sister her parents are King and Lesha. She’s jealous that Starr and Seven have a closer relationship. Seven Carter is Starr and Kenya’s half-brother and his parents are Maverick and Iesha. He stays with his dad because the relationship between him and his mother is not strong. He’s overprotective of his two little sisters. Chris is Starr’s white boyfriend who is also rich and that makes Starr think there’s a big difference between them. Both Chris and Starr share their love of Jordan’s and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Khalil was Starr’s childhood friend, he died while being unarmed by an officer. He was a drug dealer, but not by choice. He had to sell drugs because his mother Brenda was an addict and was in debt to King. King wanted Khalil to join his gang, but Khalil refused. From reading The Hate U Give I learned that you should stand up for things you believe in. And to also not be afraid to use your voice. I also learned not to judge a person so quick. I shouldn’t be quick to judge because you don’t know what that person went through. And the people who we’re meant to protect you can hurt you. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to read books about serious issues in our society. There’s a lot of references to pop culture. I would also recommend this book who’s interested to the diversity of race in this book we get a look at how the world treats different races. Once I got closer to the end of the book I was enraged of how things were turning out this book was an emotional rollercoaster but I was pleased with the ending.
