The Hate U Give Hardcover – February 28, 2017
summary
Sixteen-year-old Star-Carter navigates between two worlds: the slum she lives in and the posh suburban high school she attends. The precarious balance between worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her boyfriend Khalil by a police officer. Khalil was defenseless.
Soon after his death. Some describe him as a serial killer, possibly even a drug dealer and gangster. The demonstrators took to the streets in the name of Khalil. Some local cops and drug amps are trying to scare Star and her family. What everyone wants to know is: What really happened that night? The only one alive who can answer is Star.
But what Star does - or doesn't say - can upend her community. It can also expose her to death.
Note from the author:
The story behind The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
I remember the first time I saw Emmett Lewis Till.
I was no more than 8 years old. I came across his picture in Jet magazine on the anniversary of his death. At the time, I was convinced that he wasn't real, or at least that he wasn't a person. What was supposed to be a face was distorted beyond recognition. It sounded like a teaser from a horror movie.
But he was a man, a boy, and his story was a true cautionary tale, even for a black Mississippi girl born more than three decades after his death. My mother would say, "Know your worth," "but also know that not everyone values you as much as I do."
However, Emmett wasn't real to me. There was no way to worry about anything like that happening to me or someone I knew. Things have changed, even in Mississippi. This was history. The present had its own problems
I grew up in a popular neighborhood for all the wrong reasons. Drug dealers, shootings, and crime fed other "ghetto" stereotypes here. While everything they featured in the news was true, there was a lot you wouldn't see unless you lived there. It was my home. My neighbors were family. The neighborhood drug dealer was a superhero who gave kids money for snacks and beat up pedophiles who tried to snatch little girls off the street. Cops can be superheroes too, but I learned at an early age to be "vigilant" around them. So were my friends. We've all heard stories, and while they didn't come up with distorted images, they were more real than Emmett.
I remember the first time I saw an Oscar Grant video.
I was a trans student in my freshman year of college from which I later graduated. It was in a nicer part of the city than I lived in, but only ten minutes from it, and it was very white. Most of the time, I was the only black student in creative writing classes. I did everything I could so that no one would call me the "black girl from the cover". I was going to leave the house, blow Tupac up, but by the time I got to pick up a friend, I was listening to the Jonas Brothers. I kept silent whenever the race started in discussions, despite the looks I would get because “as the ‘avatar black girl’, I was expected to speak.
But Oscar did something to me. Suddenly, Emmett wasn't a date. Emmett was still a reality.
The video was shocking for several reasons, one of which is that someone actually recorded it on tape. This was undeniable evidence that was never given to the stories I had heard. However, my classmates, who had never heard such tales before, had their own opinions about it.
"He should have done what they said."
"He was resisting."
"I heard he was an ex-con and a drug dealer."
“He was coming. Why are people so angry?”
"They were just doing their job."
And I hate to admit it, but I remain silent.
You were hurt, no doubt. Angry. frustrated. I knew a lot of Oscars. I grew up with them and was friends with them. This was like telling them that they deserved to die.
When the unrest happened in Auckland, I wondered how society would react if it happened to one of our Oscars. I also wondered if my classmates would make the same comment if I got an Oscar. I wasn't a former hustler or gangster, but I was from a neighborhood they were afraid to visit, the same neighborhood they jokingly said was full of criminals, and I didn't know that was where I lived until months later.
From all those questions and emotions, The Hate U Give was born.
I always told stories and tales. When I can't find a way to say the words out loud or can't find someone to listen, I create characters who do it for me. The Hate U Give started as a short story in my senior year. She was a facilitator at the time, and I thought I was too today.
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