The Hate You Give review!

 The Hate U Give is a very interesting tale about the injustices that Black Americans have to face on a day-to-day basis. This story centers around the central character Star Carter, who is a young girl trying to navigate through her relationship around white people and black people. She lives in a neighborhood called Garden Heights, that is predominantly Black, but goes to a white private school away from her home. Star experiences two different worlds every day and tries very hard to keep them separate from one another. One day Starr is attending a party and starts hanging out with an old friend of hers named Khalil. Later on, Khalil offers to take Star home and they are stopped by the police for not putting on a signal at a lane change. Khalil is told to exit the car and he and the officer get into a disagreement. Khalil tries to reach for his hairbrush and is fatally shot by the police officer. 

 Starr is traumatized by this event she has witnessed, and the killing of Khalil becomes national news and causes alot of uproar. Starr tries to cope with the incident and keeps quiet until she starts to see all the responses coming about the killing of her friend. Starr then becomes a very huge voice in speaking about her friend Khalil to make sure that he hears his story and receives justice for his wrongful killing. 

The film covers the relationship between white and black, lack of African American unity, and different perspectives on the killing of Khalil. The most obvious scene that showed the most strenuous relationship was the outcome of the altercation between Khalil and the officer. This was a very crucial scene and was very important to show in my opinion because of the fact that it is still going on today. Just how fragile one’s life is as an African American citizen in America. You have to be on guard for those who’s very job is to protect you. The officer thought that it was a weapon being pulled out by Khalil because of his race and was quick to shoot him with no hesitation.  Moreover, in the film the children at Starr’s school found themselves to be pretty happy for being able to leave school to protest. But nobody was actually protesting, and they just saw it as a free ditch day. This just shows the lack of care and support of some white people for black individuals who turn a blind eye when certain incidents don’t affect them personally. However, in the film Star and her white boyfriend Chris relationship shows more of the opposite response. Chris cares for Starr and wants to help her in her struggle with getting through this hard time. He is always checking in on her even as she tries to ignore him and also helps protest with her when the grand jury does not indict the officer. Star’s relationship with her friend from school, Hailey, was another interesting look into the relationship between white and blacks in the movie. At first, Starr and Hailey are inseparable and get along very well. She seems to understand Star and wants to be down with Star’s culture. Then, once the murder of Khalil came about, we started to see her clash with Star. Hailey made comments saying that she hopes the officer's family are doing okay and that they are well. Which triggers Star to be outraged because Hailey just doesn’t seem to share the same perspective on this incident. Another trigger comes when Hailey asks Star to get over her different perspective. She then goes on to justify those claims by pointing out the fact that Khalil was a drug dealer and that his hairbrush looks like a weapon. She then goes on to say “In his hands” it does look like a weapon. This whole scene just confirmed a lot of perspective of some white Americans who simply only see black people from a stereotypical view. That African Americans are thugs and that that justifies their fate of something terrible happening to them. 

Another interesting thing that I got out of this film was the perspective coming from the family member of Starr that was a police officer. He tries to explain to Start that a lot goes on in a cop's mind when interacting with a potential suspect. They want to make it home to their families and live as well. He confesses to her that if a Black man is in a passenger seat, he would not hesitate to shoot at all versus when Starr asked about a white man being in the passenger seat. This statement that he made was very powerful to me. It further represents the embedded stereotype that not only comes from some regular white citizens, but that of cops as well. They are automatically suspicious if you are one race versus another.  This constant stereotype and stigma under black men has caused them to be feared and judged by authority without any look into them as an individual person. 

Lastly, I want to touch on the lack of unity in the African American community that was displayed in this film. Starr was hesitant to speak out about the gangs in her own community that Khalil had ties from for fear of her life. She revealed that she watched her friend get killed as a young child accidently by a gang member and never spoke up. In an instance where an African American man is killed you would think that the whole community would stand up and support Sky, but instead in this film we see harassment and threats being made to Sky’s family in her own community. Her house was shot in too and her dad’s shop was lit on fire by the gang members. Showing that one’s selfishness can harm a bigger cause. This became such a big issue that at the end Starr dad was confronted by one of the gang members and the kid pulled a gun out on the gang member. This scene showed how the hate you give towards one another does have a negative effect on the younger generation. Peace and unity should be the answer within one’s own race. We cannot be divided while trying to fight a bigger fight that is affecting our own community.