65 pages • 2 hours read
Angie ThomasThe Hate U Give
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Systemic Racism in American Society
While Khalil’s violent death at the hands of Officer 115 stands as the most powerful example of this theme in the novel, the entire story and all of its subplots are designed to highlight the myriad effects of systemic racism on the everyday lives of Black Americans. To this end, Starr and her family experience racism in a variety of contexts, from the traumatic to the mundane.
As stated, the most overt form of systemic racism in the novel occurs when Khalil is racially profiled by a police officer who shoots him on the assumption that he is going for a gun. Despite the fact that Khalil was innocent and there was no reason for him to have been pulled over in the first place, the police and the white community immediately assume that Khalil was in the wrong and that Officer 115 was right. It takes 10 weeks for a decision to be made about whether to indict the officer, and even then, the jury decides not to punish him for his heinous actions. This kind of decision is statistically proven to reflect real-life injustices that occur often in the American legal system, and the author uses this scenario to emphasize the grim reality that Black lives matter less than white lives to the people in charge.
Less overtly, Starr struggles with the repercussions of systemic racism in her everyday life. For example, she feels that she has to modulate her actions, her words, and her responses while she is at Williamson Prep to avoid being slapped with labels like “angry Black girl” and “ghetto.” Known as code-switching, this is a survival tactic that Starr uses to navigate a school full of white people who do not even realize the threat that their preconceived notions represent. Even the fact that Garden Heights is described as a dangerous place full of gangs and drugs is racist, as the implication is that Black communities are somehow inherently dangerous.
Chris is an example of a well-meaning white person who nevertheless does not realize that some of his assumptions and ideas are subtly racist. For example, Starr shows him that the statement “I don’t see race” is not seen as a helpful or supportive sentiment by disenfranchised communities. In fact, it is a mark of privilege, for only the powerful segments of society have the luxury of ignoring racial issues entirely.
More broadly, Mav and Starr discuss the process by which communities like Garden Heights become affected by the presence of drugs and gangs. The scene draws attention to the fact that due to decades of redlining, targeted law enforcement, and other forms of institutionalized and personal racism, people growing up in poor Black communities often have fewer opportunities for stable employment and housing. Additionally, other segments of society, while maintaining barriers against these minority groups, also look down on them for their lack of success. Eventually, when disenfranchised individuals grow “tired of choosing between lights and food” (18) joining a gang or selling drugs seems like the only option, and the novel’s gang-related subplots emphasize this issue. However, as Mav points out, the drugs come from outside: from rich people who only get richer. The struggling minority communities thus continue to struggle while the privileged community benefits, and the cycle of systemic racism continues.
Building Community-Wide Resistance to Injustice
Community support becomes an important theme throughout the book as Starr struggles to come to grips with the complex influence of systemic racism upon her life. Although Garden Heights is economically disadvantaged and has issues with gangs, it is ultimately a community that pulls together to protect and support its members, and as the controversy over Khalil’s death intensifies, Starr’s friends and family support her in a variety of ways, finding new methods of speaking out and resisting the society-wide injustices that surround them. As Starr puts it, “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” (328-9). Her tone of weary fondness emphasizes that her community is a solid one despite its imperfections, and as the novel progresses, she leans on this support system to find her voice and take her place in the world as an activist for positive change.
This dynamic becomes immediately apparent when Khalil is murdered, for the entire community mobilizes to protest. Similarly, when Mav and Mr. Lewis make the monumental decision to snitch on King, the rest of the neighborhood steps up to support them. Mav’s respected status within the community is also emphasized, for as the owner of the local store, he occupies a public space that welcomes everyone, and his difficult feat of renouncing the gang life earns him respect and status amongst his peers. As the aftermath of Khalil’s death galvanizes the community into action, it becomes clear that even in little ways, such as when people in the neighborhood greet Starr as they pass, Garden Heights is a true community.
For Starr, however, the question of community gains additional depth and complexity when she finds herself caught between two worlds, for although she appreciates the closeness of her neighborhood in Garden Heights, she must also walk within two worlds and contend with the “outsider” status she holds during her interactions with the majority-white students at Williamson. As controversy erupts over Officer 115’s actions, Starr spends much of the novel struggling to reconcile these two sides of her life as she endeavors to remain true to her principles and find her voice in the world. In the end, she realizes that she can build a community that is uniquely her own by including people from Williamson and people from Garden Heights.
The Impact of Police Brutality and Racial Profiling
The problem of police brutality is a theme that looms over the entire story, for Khalil’s murder by a police officer during a traffic stop is symbolic of the many deadly and damaging acts of police violence that are committed against Black individuals and other minorities on a frequent basis. Likewise, Starr’s subsequent experience with the deep flaws of the American legal system draws attention to the deeply ingrained inequality that still exists within the country’s most prominent institutions. Thomas uses the justice system’s mishandling of the case to shine a spotlight on the fact that instances of police brutality can often go unpunished; her narrative is designed to echo many of the aspects of the real-life killings of individuals like Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, and Freddie Gray, which occurred a few years before the novel’s publication.
Within the context of the novel, the characters express their bitter awareness that there will be no true justice for Khalil, and their righteous anger renders them avatars of the similar injustices that yet exist within American society due to the insidious influence of racial profiling; as their interactions prove, they and the community of Garden Heights have seen this all before. Other encounters with the police bear a similar threat of violence, such as when the two officers stop to intervene in Mav and Mr. Lewis’s argument and grossly mishandle the situation by forcing Mav to the ground and searching him even though he has done nothing to indicate that he is a threat. In short, the police intervention exacerbates a situation that was already under control. Thomas uses this scene to demonstrate that communities’ widespread distrust of the police stems from botched situations like this one, in which the officers in question misuse their power and make existing conflicts worse through their overly proactive approach to policing.
When the protests start, the police in the novel treat the protestors themselves as criminals, utterly disregarding the original injustice that first sparked the protests. Starr witnesses police brutality firsthand when the police officers throw tear gas into a crowd that has done nothing more threatening than chanting. In response to the riots and looting that later break out, the police respond by sending in armored tanks and other heavy equipment as if they are determined to go to war against a community that is merely trying to express its dissatisfaction with the injustice committed against one of their own.
Related Titles
By Angie Thomas
