The Hate U Give

Khalil’s funeral is set for Friday, a week after his death. Starr notices that the news media calls him a suspected drug dealer every time they mention his name. At school on Thursday, Starr is in gym class with Hailey and Maya after lunch. As Hailey watches some of the class playing basketball, she is annoyed by the girls’ team and their perceived lack of effort. She then decides that they will play three-against-three with the boys, without even asking if Starr and Maya even want to participate.

Chris joins the other team and takes the position guarding Starr. For a minute, Starr enjoys herself because “no matter what’s going on, when Hailey, Maya, and I play together, it’s rhythm, chemistry and skill rolled into a ball of amazingness” (109).

However, Chris distracts her by being in close physical proximity to her. Realizing that she misses him, Starr misses several opportunities to steal the ball, angering Hailey, who tells her to pretend the ball is fried chicken so she’ll stay on it. Shocked at Hailey’s racist comment, Starr leaves the court abruptly. Maya and Hailey follow her, and Starr tells Maya that she is upset about the ugly invocation of a racist stereotype. Hailey then gets angry at Starr for implying that she is racist. Starr counters, “You can say something racist and not be a racist!” (112).

Hailey deflects by asking about the drug dealer shot in Starr’s neighborhood. Worried about how her friends and school will see her if they associate her with the “drug dealer” on the news, Starr denies knowing Khalil at all, which she views as a betrayal of her friend. Hailey then assumes that Starr is upset about the anniversary of Natasha’s death; the two of them initially bonded because Hailey lost her mother around the same time. Starr goes to the office and calls Uncle Carlos to come pick her up from school. He always comes to get her when she calls about “feminine problems” (116).

They stop for frozen yogurt on the way, and Carlos calls Lisa to tell her that he picked up Starr. Carlos then presses Starr about what is really the matter. She tells him that she isn’t sure she should go to the funeral the next day, given that she hadn’t seen Khalil in months. When Starr asks Carlos if he is friends with Officer 115, he says they are just colleagues. She then asks if Carlos would have shot Khalil in the same circumstances, a question he cannot answer. Finally, she tells Carlos that the officer pointed his gun at her, too. This upsets him, and he hugs her, apologizing.

At the funeral, Pastor Eldridge greets them and expresses his sympathies for Starr, as Ms. Rosalie told him she was the witness. As Starr waits in line to pay her respects to Khalil in his coffin, she notes that his body looks like a mannequin. She remembers thinking the same thing about Natasha and realizes she is the only one left of the Hood Trio.

The service starts, the Pastor gives the eulogy, and the congregation sings to celebrate Khalil’s life and return to heaven. Then, several of Khalil’s classmates give a presentation about him, which makes Starr feel sad because she was not as good a friend to him as they were.

Next, April Ofrah, who introduces herself as an attorney working for the Just Us for Justice foundation, speaks. She tells the congregation that she heard that the police decided not to press charges against Officer 115. She also tells them that Khalil was unarmed when he was shot. She says her foundation won’t give up in its pursuit of justice for him.

As the funeral ends, King arrives with Seven’s mother Iesha on his arm, which causes tension between Mav and Lisa. Seven was born when Mav and Lisa had a fight, so he slept with King’s girl. King walks up to Khalil and lays a gray bandana on his chest, signaling that Khalil had been a King Lord. This upsets Ms. Rosalie, who throws the bandana away. Later, she thanks Starr for coming, as she knows that Starr meant a lot to Khalil.

Outside as they leave the church, they see protestors holding signs. April Ofrah comes over to speak to Starr, telling her that she wants to help make sure her side of the story is heard without anyone exploiting her. She gives her a business card and says to call when she’s ready. However, Starr doesn’t know if she’ll ever be ready to speak.

That night, Mav decides to stay over at the store because he worries the protests may turn into riots in Garden Heights. At home, the rest of the family hears gunshots and eats dinner on the floor of the den to stay safe. They watch the news and see protestors on Magnolia Avenue. When the cops spray the crowd with tear gas, everyone runs. Images of looting car-fires fill the television screen. Starr concludes, “my neighborhood is a war zone” (139).

Chris texts both Hailey and Maya to make sure Starr is ok. Lisa checks in on the neighbors, and everything remains quiet on their street. Mav comes home and says the riots are confined to the east side of the neighborhood, away from them and the store.

Starr goes to bed and has a nightmare about Natasha. With the riots having died down, Seven wakes her up in the morning and talks her into playing basketball in the park. Still, there is smoke in the air and they see cop cars on the streets.

At the park, Starr dominates the game of basketball until two Garden Disciple gang members approach them. They ask if Seven is a King Lord, which he is not, and then try to mug them. However, a boy sitting on the merry-go-round watching the game comes up and tells them the park is King territory. He indicates two nearby King Lords in a car. The rival gang members leave.

The boy introduces himself; he is DeVante, the boy that Kenya was upset about at the party before Khalil’s death. For this reason, Starr is cool toward him when he flirts with her. Suddenly, Mav screeches up in his Tahoe and yells at Seven and Starr for leaving the house, embarrassing them in front of DeVante and the other nearby King Lords. He takes them home, where Lisa also yells at them for going out without telling anyone the day after a riot. She then confiscates their phones and sends them to Uncle Carlos’s house for the day.

Once on the freeway, Lisa sees Starr is upset and tells her that when she was born, she could not breathe, even though Lisa did everything right during her pregnancy. She said one of the nurses told her “sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing what’s right” (154).

They reach Uncle Carlos’s house, which is near where Maya and Chris live, but Starr is grounded and thus forbidden to see them. As Carlos cooks food on the grill, his wife Pam greets everyone warmly. Nana, Lisa’s mother, pulls them aside to say she wants to return to live in Garden Heights because she doesn’t like Pam.

Later, Chris comes over because he saw their car arrive. He apologizes to Starr about pressuring her into having sex. Starr also apologizes for being distant, telling him he wouldn’t understand. Hurt by this, Chris presses her until she admits that the reason he wouldn’t understand is because he is white. Chris tries to say he doesn’t care about race, but Starr informs him that she has to care about race because it affects her whole life. Chris admits that she is right—he doesn’t understand. He tells her he misses her, though.

Talking with him, Starr starts to feel normal again. She decides she can’t jeopardize that feeling by telling him the truth about being a witness that night.

At sundown, the riots start again, causing Starr and Seven to spend the night at Carlos’s house. On the way home the next day, they pass through a police roadblock, which scares Starr. She panics and grips the door handle all the way through. They pass through without incident and Lisa tells her it’s all fine. But Starr realizes “her words used to have power. If she said it was fine, it was fine. But after you’ve held two people as they took their last breaths, words like that don’t mean shit anymore” (165).

When they get home, Mav decides to take Starr with him to the warehouse to replenish the store. On the way, they talk about Harry Potter and listen to Tupac. As they discuss THUG LIFE, Starr decides that it refers to how society treats any oppressed group; they are hated but also feared.

Mav points out that Khalil had little choice in becoming a drug dealer. He needed money and had no opportunities for work elsewhere. He also explains that while drugs destroy communities like Garden Heights, the drugs come from elsewhere and are controlled by the wealthy. The hate Tupac referred to is therefore the system that is designed against oppressed groups, like the Black community in Garden Heights.

THUG LIFE also applies to the riots because the hate given to the community explodes into violence and anger in a vicious cycle that “fucks everyone” (171). They agree that nothing will change if everyone is silent. Starr concludes that she should therefore speak out, and Mav agrees.

As they stock the shelves of the store, DeVante arrives and pretends he wants to buy something. However, he is really there to hide from King, who ordered him to kill the guys who shot DeVante’s brother on the night of the Spring Break party. Starr realizes that was the party she attended before Khalil’s murder.

DeVante doesn’t want to kill anyone and wants to get out of the King Lords for good. Although Mav got out, he explains that he only escaped because he took the fall when the police arrested him and King for moving weapons. King let him out of the gang because he was grateful. However, this rarely happens. Usually, being in a gang is for life.

Still, DeVante wants out because he wants to stay alive. Mav agrees to help him. He says he can work in the store to start. Starr teaches him how to use the price gun and realizes that she possibly misjudged him before.

That night, DeVante stays with the Carters, which upsets Lisa because King would be mad if he knew. She says she wants to move to a safer neighborhood, whether Mav comes or not. Starr overhears this argument and worries for her parents’ safety.