"The Hate U Give"

     I think a main point contained within Angie Thomas' "The Hate U Give" is that people from minority backgrounds often struggle to construct an identify for themselves in the face of overwhelming stereotypes and popular cultural narratives. Additionally, even when they construct an identity for themselves, those in the majority have the power (i.e., through the media or via influence through their connections higher up in society) to either completely erase these identities or simply write new narratives over them. 

    We can see all of these things happen and the effects they have in society in the case of Khalil. Initially, when the news is reporting on his murder, they leave him completely unidentified, and Starr notes how they frame the incident in a way that centers the cop instead of the victim: "I wait. Between a story about a bad car accident on the freeway and a garbage bag of live puppies that was found in a park, there's a short story about an officer-involved shooting that is being investigated. They don't even say Khalil's name. Some bullshit" (Thomas 47). As Starr poignantly indicates, the reporting essentially glosses over the fact that a young boy was shot and killed, a young boy who had a name, a family, and an identity as a human being, all of which are being completely and intentionally left out of the report as to not incriminate the cop. This changes after the police "interview" Starr, although it is much more of an interrogation, even though she and Khalil are not the ones on trial in this scenario.

    During the week of Khalil's funeral and after she discussed the night he was murdered with the police, Starr tunes in to the local news and catches their segment on Khalil's murder: "On the Monday night news, they finally gave Khalil's name in the story about the shooting, but with a title added to it--Khalil Harris, a Suspected Drug Dealer. They didn't mention that he was unarmed..." (104). Only after they had information that could incriminate him instead of the cop did the news decide to give the victim of the shooting his name. Furthermore, as Starr notes, it's not just what the news puts in, but also what the news leaves out; Starr comments on how the news does not specify that Khalil was unarmed and posed no threat to the cop. This leaves open, however, the interpretation of the incident that the cop was acting in self-defense, and that is often enough plausible deniability in these cases for the general public to assume that the cop was acting correctly. We see how this painting of the incident seeps down through the community later during the day of protest at Williamson over Khalil's death.

    After Khalil's funeral and the public demonstration for justice, the students at Williamson, Starr's high school, stage a walk-out protest. The intentions of this walk-out, however, are not just; the Williamson students, who are almost all white, wealthy, and totally removed from the physical and social environs of Garden Heights, are using Khalil's murder as an opportunity to feign an allegiance to justice while also being able to skip school. This fact alone already outrages Starr, but she becomes even more infuriated when Hailey, one of Starr's friends and the sister of the organizer of the student protest, makes a comment about Khalil: "This is, like, the first time Remy actually came up with a good idea to get out of class. I mean, it's kinda messed up that we're protesting a drug dealer's death, but--" (183). Immediately, Starr loses her cool and justifiably calls out Hailey for having the audacity to criticize the person whose death she is using simply to skip an English exam. What is notable from this interaction, however, is that we can see how the news' narrative of Khalil's murder and their portrayal of him have poisoned people's perception of him and the event. As Starr notes, Hailey's words intimate that Khalil deserved what happened to him because he was a drug dealer, and Starr correctly pounces on her for her hypocrisy. The entire walk-out leaves Starr sick to her stomach as she is forced to witness all of her white classmates, those who have not even come close to systemic injustice or racially-motivated police brutality, somehow profit off of the unjust murder of a young black boy.