Book Review of The Hate U Give & A Discussion on Stereotypes
Trigger Warning: This contains content on police brutality and violence directed toward young minorities.
For my Young Adult Literature class, we just finished reading "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas. It's a book I've been wanting to read, and I'm glad I finally got the chance to read it. My book review is mainly going to be about activism and the themes, and less about the details. I'm not here to critique anything, but rather to talk about what I took from the book and how I think society can benefit from the book's message.
I'm also taking an advanced psychology class this summer that follows development through adolescence and early adulthood, and so I thought it was interesting how my two classes, despite being different subjects, have been working together.
My psych class talked about the Storm and Stress model by Hall. In my Young Adult Lit class, there was an article we read that went into how Hall's model is racist. His model assumes all adolescents go through the same phases. For example, it assumes that peer groups become increasingly influential social networks. However, teens who aren't white, when they get together with peers, they are written off as "gangs." When they rebel against the status quo, they become "criminals." It all comes down to the core idea that only white children get off with the excuse of "they're only teenagers." When a kid who isn't white does something risky, they don't get that excuse. The school-to-prison-pipeline has shown that kids who aren't white get heavier consequences than whites do who commit the same exact offense. Miniorites get stereotypes and labels such as "thugs." People see them as dangerous. They aren't allowed to "act like teenagers." Notice how the abbreviation for the title of the novel spells out THUG.
These are all ideas that are in "The Hate U Give." In the novel, Starr talks about how if she talks a certain way, she's automatically a "thug." Because of this, she participates in "code-switching," which is hiding parts of herself to fit in with society. When she goes to her private school that is mostly all white people, she feels she has to talk without using slang words. She has to use proper American English and grammar or else she'll be stereotyped. When she talks with the police after One-Fifteen murdered her childhood friend, she gets mad at herself when she accidentally says "Nah," instead of "No." She feels that she has to conform into white culture just to feel safe, which is so sad to think about. It's something that needs to change.
In the novel, after Khalil is shot and murdered, everyone focuses on the fact that he sold drugs. The policeman, the one who shot him, is never questioned right away. In the beginning, Starr fears the police. But then she starts to want to use her voice and she becomes an activist. It's the big character arc of the story, and I love it, because I think it has the potential to make everyone want to be an activist like Starr. It makes me feel like I need to use my voice to do something more. It's extremely sad that police brutality toward minorities is still something happening today.
I also really loved Chris's character. He's Starr's boyfriend. He's white. At first Starr wasn't able to even touch him without thinking about One-Fifteen. But Chris is a really nice guy and in the end he goes and helps Starr protest. He has no problem going into her community. I like that she's eventually able to open up to him. It would be wrong to say that all white men are like One-Fifteen (I believe Thomas didn't name him because she didn't want readers humanizing him).
The character that made me really mad was Hailey. She was extremely racist toward Starr and very insensitive. Even after Starr's friend was shot, she still had no sympathy for her. She wasn't able to admit that what she said was wrong; she couldn't apologize. I like that Thomas included her character though because it's realistic. There are people out there who won't change. There are people who aren't able to accept their privilege. In one of my classes, we had a unit on accepting privilege. It's not something that's easy to do but it's necessary. I think Hailey represented the people who fail to look back on history and see that people who are white have had their moment for centuries. Black history month is one month in the year, yet white history month is every single day.
Plus, that's another thing I learned from this book and from the articles I read is that history isn't even always true. We learn about all these white men in history and we only learn about the good things they did; my history classes never went over the fact they owned slaves. In "All Boys Aren't Blue" by George M. Johnson, he reveals quotes by Abraham Lincoln that show he was not on the side of slaves. He may have freed slaves, but he literally said that if he had a different way to preserve the Union without having to free them, then he would. Until I read that book, I did not know that. I finished APUSH in high school thinking Abraham Lincoln was someone who cared about minorities, only to realize he didn't.
Miseducation in schools happens all the time. We should be reading narratives by minorities just as much as we're reading American history. And when we talk about slaves in history, we should also teach from the perspective of the oppressed and not just from the oppressor; we should dive deeper into the full stories of minorities during that time, rather than only mentioning them as slaves or Native Americans. They were humans, they had their own stories, and we don't even talk about them or their cultures. This is something I'm passionate about changing.
I think that's the reason why Starr cares so much about making people remember Khalil. There's a fear that history will be changed by those in power. They will taint history to make them look better. They want to paint the officer to be the victim rather than the perpetrator. It's why it's so important for all of us to use our voices.
I cried reading this book. But I don't want to just be one of those people who reads a book, cries about it, but then does nothing about it. I want to be a voice in the present-day movements such as BLM. I really don't want to read another headline that says a policeman has shot another minority. I feel like we're learning about history a lot, but we need more agency. We need to want to change it.
This book gave me all the motivation I needed to speak up. When you read this book, what impact do you think it'll have on you? What impact do you want it to have on you?
PS - this book is banned in certain places :( why do you think that is?
If you are struggling with gun violence, here are some resources:
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