Starr's Identity In The Hate U Give

In her novel The Hate U Give Angie Thomas argues that Starr's identity is strongly identified by her race and the death of khalil is partly due to racism rooted in the police force. Through the use of the death of khalil and officer one-fifteen, Thomas tells a story in Starr’s point of view that indicates connections between the police and the black community.

One main issue that Starr faces is the struggle of fitting in. From the beginning of the novel, Starr identifies that her personality is two-sided. When she’s at Williamson, Starr is concerned that her friends and other classmates might think that she’s “ghetto”. She realizes that being one of the few black students at Williamson automatically makes her “cool,” But at the same time …show more content…
Starr’s identity is ponderously informed by her race, and the death of Khalil's is due in part to stop racism in the police force. The tension that Starr feels between Garden Heights and Williamson is the differences in wealth and race. Most of her friends and classmates at school are white, and most of her neighbors are black. Like I stated earlier, Starr feels the need to behave a certain way so her classmates don't see her as "too black" at school and that she's not "too white" at home. The Hate U Give, doesn’t only stereotype people of color, but Thomas made an interesting choice of making Hailey to be the racist.“. . . Hailey asked if we ate a cat. Because we’re chinese” (251). It seems that Thomas made an interesting choice of having Starr’s friend be the one who is stereotyping and being racist towards other races. The novel, which people of color are subjected, are extremely pervasive and damaging, even causing the death of an innocent boy. By dealing directly with the problems of police brutality and protest, the book enters into the broader conversation about race relations in the US. when Starr and her family take Devante to uncle carlos’s house in Williamson’s, Chris went over to the house and that's when Starr’s father maverick found out that Starr was dating a White male. Her father was very furious that that she told uncle Carlo's before him, as long as Chris was treating Start right, maverick didn’t seem to mind …show more content…
The first night Starr was with Khalil in the car was the first time the readers got introduced with Tupac’s song while it played on the radio and then we heard about it again when Maverick was going in more depth about meaning behind “THUG life”. “The hate u give little infants fucks everybody”(205). Tupac is a big influence on her, like the fresh prince of bel air, Star finally knows what THUG represented. Tupac’s song that Starr is referring to, was asked by her father Maverick her thoughts on the song. “‘Black people, minorities, poor people.Everybody at the bottom in society’ ‘the oppressed’ says daddy”(168). The black community had lack of opportunities, Maverick wanted to make sure Knew that. The black community lives a harder life when it comes to officers, it's like they have control over their lives, in which they do because most officers are while and only a few are people of colo like uncle Carlos and the one officer who almost arrested Maverick on the side of the road for not doing anything violating the law, it was solely based on his looks. Starr mentions that whenever an officer pulls you over, to always have your hands visible, because they might think that you are armed. That's what happened to Khalil, he was killed because officer one-fifteen “felt threatened” but in fact it was a hair brush that was believed to be a gun. Like Starr, anyone who is pulled over by an officer, you don't talk back and keep your