English 2.9 – Wide Reading
Text Style: VisualDirector: George Tillman

BREIF

The Hate U Give tells the story of a 16 year old girl, Starr Carter.  Born and raised in the ‘black neighbourhood’ Garden Heights, studying in the ‘white neighbourhood’ Williamson Starr Carter lives to very significantly different lives. Starr is attending a party in Garden Heights with her friend Kenya when a gun is fired. Starr and her friend Khalil quickly flee the scene in Khalil’s car and are stopped by a white police officer. The officer requests Khalil to  get out of the car and while outside he leans into the car to check on Starr and grab a hairbrush. The officer assumes the hairbrush is a weapon and shoots Khalil. His death is recognised nationally and, by many people, recognised as a form of racial injustice and results in an uproar of peaceful protests and riots. Starr has to work through a series of rollercoaster of emotions as she avoids telling her white friends what’s happened. She finds herself getting continually upset and frustrated at their ignorance when they talk about Khalil’s death not knowing that she was involved. Eventually Starr agrees to use her voice and speak on national television about the situation as well as speaking to the grand jury. Despite Starrs attempt the white officer is not indicted resulting in an eruption of protests and riots. Starr, who was in an increasingly public role during the protests, and her brother Seven end up fleeing the scene when the riots get out of control and run for safety to their fathers store. The store is firebombed by King, a local drug lord who is used to work with Starr’s father but had become increasingly angry due to the fact that Starr had exposed them when she spoke on national TV. Starr and Seven managed to escape as their family came to help them. Police arrive to the scene and an awkward situation arises as Sekani, Starrs younger brother, pulls out a gun and points it at King. Starr manages to diminish the situation and everyone remains safe. King is then arrested and taken to jail as the community comes together to stand up against him. Starr continues to live her life along with the memory of Khalil and a new attitude towards speaking up against injustice.

PERSONAL RESPONSE

I was originally intrigued to watch the film ‘The Hate U Give’ because of its theme of prejudice. Tackling the issues regarding racial injustice is something that I perceive as incredibly relevant in current day society and I wanted to experience a different perspective  and better my understanding of racism. The main actor is also one of my favourite actors and in my opinion a very interesting person so I was curious to see the way she helped convey such a personal perspective of prejudice.

My reaction and response to the film was similar to how I thought it would be, my eyes were furthered opened to the weight that comes with being of colour. I am very aware of events of racism that have happened in the present day, but I view them as extreme. In the film Khalil, an innocent, black kid was shot impulsively by a police officer purely because he was black. Pulled over on the side of the street for no reason other than the colour of his skin with a police officer who had an overwhelming sense of negative preconceived judgement of his character. Khalil was shot dead by an irrational police officer who made a careless decision, as I mentioned this is something I would perceive as extreme. In my eyes it is a rarity and unlikely to happen but ‘The Hate U Give’ showed that these acts of racial injustice are sometimes treated as situations that were likely to happen. Despite all of the protests and the blatant injustice of the situation the white police officer is failed to be indicted by the Grand Jury. The attitude that police officers can get away with these acts is something that’s focused on within the film therefore I went and researched the topic further and found that police officers are “very rarely prosecuted for shootings”. This demonstrated the vicious cycle that occurs in America, there is a huge racial disproportion of unarmed police killings and the fact that the response to a shooting of an unarmed victim doesn’t involve punishment shows that prejudice itself isn’t taken serious enough. I think this film did a great job of emphasizing the weight of prejudice within the police force through the death of Khalil. Not only did it create an emotional response within me it has also inspired me to research and educate myself more on the topic of police shootings.

Prejudice is also displayed in the film through the use of white privilege. The director creates situations that make you  question your own privilege, whether you are using it beneficially and whether you are ignorant to the struggles involved when you don’t have that privilege. 

I’ve never had the fear of being shot by a police officer whereas Starr Carter is constantly from a young age taught how to act around police officers as a result of this fear. “When I was twelve, my parents had 2 talks with me. One was the usual birds and bees… the other was about what to do if a cop stopped me”. This made me consider my own white privilege in bigger depth. This made me realise that it isn’t just being favored in some situations because of the colour of your skin, it’s being free of fear. It’s having another element of safety and confidence that you will not fall into a negative stereotype associated with your race and you won’t be treated based off this negative preconceived judgement. I found this to be one of the more important aspects of the film for a white person as it made me seriously question not only my white privilege  but also my ignorance.

The film tends to focus on the reasons as to why that prejudice exists. It is clearly shown through the comparison of prosperity between the neighbourhoods, Garden Heights and Williamson. The kids that are raised in the ‘white area’ are raised ‘better’, they have good families and parents with stable jobs, they are provided with a good education and opportunities to live comfortably. The ‘black area’ is clearly made to represent the polar opposite, the kids lives lack stability and opportunity to rise out of the poverty cycle that they live in. The film targets the idea that racial prejudice occurs because of the behaviour of people in the black community. The recurring fights/violence, the drug cartels, the guns, the kids ditching school. These are all examples of where racial prejudice stems from because when the majority of people in the black community are doing it the ones who aren’t are still  stereotyped into that category. The film, while spotlighting the cause of racial stereotyping and prejudice, also tackles the idea of why the black community has that sort of behaviour in the first place. “Pac said Thug Life stood for ‘The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody’.” This describes the way the poverty cycle is never ending and traps people that are born into it. The black community are in a position of poverty and therefore desperation because they were placed in that position many years ago. They learnt from their parents how to survive in the community they live in and their kids will learn from them. This cycle has created habits within their community that revolve around crime and these habits are responsible for the negative stereotypes and preconceived judgement of black people.

The overall theme of prejudice within this film is clearly through the form of racism, both minor and major but both equally important. From the way white people at Starrs school react to her because of her skin colour, to the carelessness and irrational judgement of the cop that shot Khalil dead. This represents the variation of the ways that African Americans experience racism and how inescapable the discrimination is. The director tends to lay emphasis on these moments to try explain this variation however I found that there was a fair amount of cliche, overdramatized stereotypes separating black and white people. 

A lot of racial labelling of particular things; music genres, clothing, ways of acting. I don’t want to diminish the uniqueness or traditions of different cultures by recognising this but I also think it’s 2019 and people tend to act for themselves not as a perfectly cloned stereotypes of their race. It’s mentioned a lot in the movie that Starr, lives her Garden Heights ‘black life’ and her Williamson ‘white life’. I can understand that it just might not personally relate to me because the environment that I live in doesn’t have such intense conformity to stereotypes. I don’t live in America but I found that the characters are extremely catered to meet the typical white and black stereotypes. There also aren’t any people of colour to compare myself or other white people to. My personality, interests and things I’m into are a mixture of many things that are labelled either racially white or black in this film. 

Despite this factor I learnt a lot from watching this film. I enjoyed the way the storyline and dialogue made me question my own privilege, ignorance and values within the topic of racism.