Brutality And Racial Profiling In The Hate U Give By Angie Thomas

In a world where police brutality is no new subject for many, there are often numerous debates about police brutality and racial profiling. The Hate U Give tells the story of Starr Carter, how she witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood friend Khalil (who was unarmed), at the hands of a white police officer (who ‘mistook’ Khalil’s hairbrush for a gun), and how Starr has to deal with her two worlds at once. The themes mainly explored in this book are: racism, police violence, and activism against social injustice. Throughout the novel, author Angie Thomas also talks about excessive force and biased assumptions made by police officers, as well as the criminalization of black communities as a whole. Throughout the novel, author Angie Thomas does a magnificent job of explaining both her personal perspective, Starr’s perspective, and the perspective of everyone who has

Time and time again, the same problems arise from the overfunding of police and the underfunding in communities of color. An example of this issue can be seen with the difference in Garden Heights compared to Starr’s school Williamson Prep, and how people from Garden Heights think that Starr believes she’s too good to be seen with them, while Starr has to be careful about her use of her dialect around people at Williamson Prep because she doesn’t want to be seen as “the Angry Black Girl” or even the “Weak Black Girl” (page 115). To summarize what we’ve discussed so far, The Hate U Give truly does a wonderful job of opening your eyes to the horrors of police brutality that many people of color face even