The Hate U Give

“The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody.”

In the very first chapter, Khalil explains what Tupac’s THUG LIFE ideology stands for. This is the source of the book’s title and a major theme throughout the work. This line is especially tragic as, in the next chapter, Khalil dies as a result of the systemic and cyclical violence that Tupac’s words define. The hate that causes his death results in more violence and hate, leading to riots that potentially have serious fallout for Starr and her community.

“I’ve seen it happen over and over again: a black person gets killed just for being black, and all hell breaks loose. I’ve Tweeted RIP hashtags, reblogged pictures on Tumblr, and signed every petition out there. I always said that if I saw it happen to somebody, I would have the loudest voice, making sure the world knew what went down. Now I am that person, and I’m too afraid to speak.”

Starr explains how Khalil’s death and the lack of justice that follows is, tragically, not an anomalous event in Garden Heights nor in America in general. This quote speaks to the way that police brutality and the deaths of innocent Black people in America are typically handled: it is news for a time, people share the story on social media, there is outrage, and sometimes protests. However, there is rarely significant justice for the victim. In this section, Starr sees how easy it is to say that she would speak out against injustice when it is hypothetical, but how frightening it is to do so when it directly affects her life.

“Don’t let them put words in your mouth. God gave you a brain. You don’t need theirs.”

Mav tells Starr not to let the police officers twist her words when she goes to tell them her side of the story. Mav and Starr know that when a police shooting happens—especially one involving a Black man—the media and authorities always blame the victim, explicitly or by implication. This turns out to be wise advice, as the police officers frame the interview almost entirely around Khalil and his actions, rather than Officer 115’s. 

“Williamson Starr doesn’t use slang—if a rapper would say it, she doesn’t say it, even if her white friends do. Slang makes them cool. Slang makes her ‘hood.’ Williamson Starr holds her tongue when people piss her off so nobody will think she’s the ‘angry black girl.’ Williamson Starr is approachable. No stank-eyes, none of that. Williamson Starr is no confrontational. Basically, Williamson Starr doesn’t give anyone a reason to call her ghetto. I can’t stand myself for doing it, but I do it anyway.”

This passage again shows the fine line Starr must walk while attending the predominantly white and wealthy school, Williamson Prep. She cannot be who she truly is or display strong emotions for fear of playing into people’s preconceived notions and stereotypes. She knows that being labeled “ghetto” or “hood” would make her life difficult and might mean she would not have friends, so she takes care to maintain a façade at school.

“I hope none of them ask about my spring break. They went to Taipei, the Bahamas, Harry Potter World. I stayed in the hood and saw a cop kill my friend.”

This quote highlights the differences that Starr feels at Williamson every day but that her white friends and classmates likely never even imagine. Being raised in privileged households, they talk about expensive vacations and other luxuries, never considering that they are among a very small section of American society who can afford these things. Starr must keep quiet and hope no one notices that she does not share these experiences with them for fear of being labeled an outsider.

“Khalil’s eyes stare back at me, and I realize my mom’s right. Ms. Brenda is Khalil’s momma. Regardless.”

Starr believes that Khalil’s mother, Brenda, was a poor mother to him, as she was the reason he got into drug dealing and, therefore, may have indirectly contributed to his death. However, she comes to understand that the pain Brenda feels at his death is no less real. She was still his mother; she still loved him. She realizes it is not her place to judge Brenda, either.

“You can say something racist and not be a racist!”

This quote comes after a crucial moment in the book when Hailey casually makes a racist comment to Starr about fried chicken. Hailey reacts defensively, but Starr tries to explain that her intention is not to call Hailey a racist but to point out that the comment was racist. She attempts to draw attention to the unconscious racial biases that Hailey internalizes. However, Hailey refuses to think critically about her words or why she said them, believing that the comment was harmless and that Starr simply overreacted.

“Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right.”

Lisa shares this wisdom with Starr after she talks to the police—trying to do the right thing—but nothing seems to come of it. This is a major message in the book: Things don’t always work out fairly and justice is not always served, but this is no reason to stop striving for a better future. In fact, that is the only way to make the future better than the present. It also highlights the extent to which entreaties rooted in respectability politics to “do everything right” often fail as strategies for achieving racial justice.

“Her words used to have power. If she said it was fine, it was fine. But after you’ve held two people as they took their last breaths, words like that don’t mean shit anymore.”

In this passage, Starr expresses how her perspective changed since the death of Khalil. She witnessed firsthand how frightening, unjust, and deadly the world can be, especially for members of the Black community. Therefore, she is no longer comforted when her mother tells her that everything is fine. She knows that everything is not fine.

“‘Exactly. Drugs come from somewhere, and they’re destroying our community,’ he says. ‘You got folks like Brenda, who think they need them to survive, and then you got the Khalils, who think they need to sell them to survive. The Brendas can’t get jobs unless they’re clean, and they can’t pay for rehab unless they got jobs. When the Khalils get arrested for selling drugs, they either spend most of their life in prison, another billion-dollar industry, or they have a hard time getting a real job and probably start selling drugs again. That’s the hate they’re giving us, baby, a system designed against us. That’s Thug Life.’”

In this passage, Mav and Starr discuss Tupac’s THUG LIFE ideology as it applies to communities like Garden Heights. The neighborhood is seen as violent, full of drugs and gangs, and ultimately, a dangerous place. By extension, the people who live there are looked down on by the wealthier, predominantly white segments of society that hold the most political and economic power. However, the same systems that are designed to help the privileged classes achieve success and wealth keep individuals in disadvantaged communities from making the same advances. Instead, people like Khalil are caught in a self-perpetuating cycle that leads to the drug trade and gangs.

“They’re so damn excited about getting a day off. Khalil’s in a grave. He can’t get a day off from that shit. I live it every single day too.”

This quote is in response to Starr learning that the students of Williamson plan to stage a protest for Khalil just to get out of class. Starr is sickened and infuriated that his unjust killing is used as nothing more than an excuse to cut class. The students of Williamson don’t truly care about Khalil and cannot even imagine what it would be like to be Starr in this situation.

“They act like I’m the official representative of the black race and they owe me an explanation. I think I understand though. If I sit out a protest, I’m making a statement, but if they sit out a protest, they look racist.”

Some white students also refuse to participate in the fake protest, and Starr finds them coming up to her to explain why. On the one hand, Starr does not like to be singled out by her skin color and used as a way for people to express white guilt. However, she also understands that the students mean well because they do not want her to assume they refused to protest for racist reasons.

“The only way people will know his side of the story is if I speak out.”

In this section, Starr finally resolves to speak out and tell her side of the story. She sees white voices and the voices of the establishment control the narrative. If she doesn’t bear witness as the only person who saw the shooting happen, then no one will defend Khalil, and he will be blamed for his own death.

“That’s the problem. We let people say stuff, and they say it so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us. What’s the point of having a voice if you’re gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn’t be?”

When Maya and Starr realize that Hailey routinely says casually racist things to both of them, they decide to form what they call a “minority alliance” and agree not to let her say those things unchallenged anymore. Letting subtle racism go unaddressed is one of the ways that major, systemic racism is allowed to flourish. This is another example of Starr realizing that using her voice, is her best weapon against hate of all kinds.

“‘He was more than any bad decision he made,’ he says. ‘I hate that I let myself fall into that mind-set of trying to rationalize his death. And at the end of the day, you don’t kill someone for opening a car door. If you do, you shouldn’t be a cop.’”

In this passage, Carlos realizes that he has internalized a systemically racist mindset as a result of his affiliation as a police officer. Like many others, he immediately jumped to conclusions about Khalil when he heard about the murder, looking for things like Khalil’s history as a drug dealer as an explanation for why Officer 115 shot him. However, Carlos realizes that this is just internalized hatred and that there is no excuse for shooting someone for opening a car door.

“Well, Munch, you have to decide if the relationship is worth salvaging. Make a list of the good stuff, then make a list of the bad stuff. If one outweighs the other, then you know what you gotta do. Trust me, that method hasn’t failed me yet.”

When Starr tells her mother about Hailey’s racist comments, Lisa advises her to take stock of the relationship and decide if her friendship with Hailey is worth fighting for. She doesn’t tell Starr to abandon her completely but also doesn’t advise her to put up with Hailey’s behavior just to save the friendship. Ultimately, Hailey’s refusal to fully acknowledge her internalized racist biases causes Starr to extricate herself from a toxic friendship.

“At an early age I learned that people make mistakes, and you have to decide if their mistakes are bigger than your love for them.”

Lisa tells Starr that growing up with a mother who was addicted to alcohol and enduring less-than-ideal circumstances taught her that no one is perfect. Life is about forgiveness and understanding, not leaving people you love behind when they make mistakes. However, Lisa does not tell Starr that understanding is always required. Instead, she encourages her to weigh her love and connection for a person against the seriousness of their mistakes and make a decision that way.

“‘Right. This all happened because he’—I can’t say his name—‘assumed that we were up to no good. Because we’re black and because of where we live. We were just two kids, minding our business, you know? His assumption killed Khalil. It could’ve killed me.’”

In giving her interview to the local news station, Starr tries to put into words the issue of systemic racism: it is that the baseline assumption by people in power is that Black people are somehow dangerous or deceptive. This is true not just of individuals but of systems like the criminal justice system. The individuals in power are most often white and the systems were generally created by majority-white individuals as well to maintain a social stratification built to a large extent around race.

“People around here don’t have much, but they help each other out as best they can. It’s this strange, dysfunctional-as-hell family, but it’s still a family.”

In this quote, Starr sees how her community of Garden Heights—of which she was previously ashamed—is a family. The people who live there may not have the most money or economic power, but they care about one another and will work to protect one another. This is seen again later when the neighborhood comes together to support Mav when he snitches on King.

“‘Brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared, Starr,’ she says. ‘It means you go on even though you’re scared. And you’re doing that.’”

Again, Lisa acts as a voice of wisdom for Starr in this section. She explains that bravery is not a lack of fear, but instead, it is the courage to do what is right and speak out even in the face of fear. This lesson helps Starr through her grand jury testimony and again later when she speaks to the crowd at the protests. It becomes a kind of mantra for her at the end of the book as she vows never to be silent.

“They with a capital T. There’s Them and then there’s Us. Sometimes They look like Us and don’t realize They are Us.”

After Starr gets into a fight at school, Lisa makes a remark about her behaving just like They would expect. Essentially, she broke her own rules and played into the stereotypes at school that she usually tries to avoid. However, Starr realizes that there always exists a dichotomy of Them and Us. The powerful, majority-white community sees the disenfranchised majority-Black community as “Them,” but the reverse is also true. This mindset is adversarial and is the result of unconscious biases born from unchallenged systemic racism.

“I never know which Starr I should be. I can use some slang, but not too much slang, some attitude, but not too much attitude, so I’m not a ‘sassy black girl.’ I have to watch what I say and how I say it, but I can’t sound ‘white.’”

Again, Starr articulates the fine line she walks in her day-to-day life. While at school, she tries not to act “too Black,” but in her home community, she has to try not to act “too white.” Since she goes to a private, majority-white school, there is a danger that the Black community will stereotype her in the same way that her white classmates might stereotype her.

“People say misery loves company, but I think it’s like that with anger too.”

Witnessing the protests and how they turn quickly into riots, Starr realizes that anger is a unifying factor for a community. However, while the power of collective anger can be constructive, such as how the protestors unite around a message against injustice, she also sees that it can easily become destructive when not channeled toward a goal.