The Hate U Give
The Hate U Give is Angie Thomas’s first novel about a teenage girl who grapples with racism, police brutality, and activism after witnessing her black friend murdered by the police, expanded from a short story she wrote in college in reaction to the police shooting of Oscar Grant. The book became an immediate young adult bestseller and was adapted into The Hate U Give Movie shortly after its release. [1]
Plot
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. [2]
Controversy
Starr Carter, a young African-American woman who witnesses her childhood friend gunned down by a policeman during a traffic stop. Starr’s parents actively educate her and her siblings about racism, giving advice about how to handle themselves when interacting with white people and tutoring them in the history of activism that has sought to raise awareness about the consequences of racism for all Americans. This author of The Hate U Give has delivered a powerful novel that strikes the heart of contemporary race relations in the United States.[3]
References
- ↑ The Hate U Give. Wikipedia. Retrieved January 27 2021.
- ↑ The Hate U Give Book Summary. Book Browse. Retrieved January 28 2021.
- ↑ Alexander, Jonathan. Other People’s Children, Part 2: Stories in the Aftermath, or “The Hate U Give”. Los Angeles Review of Books. 8 December 2017. Retrieved January 27 2021.
