"Officer One-Fifteen yells at me, pointing the same gun he killed my friend with" (Thomas 24). That happened to 16-year-old Starr Carter, who witnessed a shooting of her childhood friend Khalil by a white officer. In "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas, the book introduces a sad tragedy and a brutal community she is dealing with. Starr was brave enough to help her community and to stop the violence, which shows good leadership skills. Despite the challenges, Starr spoke out about police cruelty and racism. A few weeks after the shooting, Starr was nervous about revealing she was the witness but eventually decided to speak in a television interview about who Khalil was and that he was innocent. In Chapter 16, Starr says, "But I'm tired of them assuming. Especially when it comes to black people" (Thomas 289). This quote shows that she doesn't want people, especially cops, to assume that …show more content…
Throughout the novel, when Starr is in school, she tries to fit in with other students and speaks formally. But when Starr is in her poor neighborhood, she talks with slang and cusses. In Chapter 5, “I just have to be normal Starr at normal Williamson and have a normal day. That means flipping the switch in my brain so I’m Williamson Starr. Williamson Starr doesn’t use slang… Slang makes her “hood” (Thomas 71). This quote shows Starr is a great leader throughout the book because she changes her behavior, tone, and vocabulary to be formal in school. In Chapter 3, “That's when I realized Williamson is one world and Garden Heights is another, and I have to keep them separate" (Thomas 36). This quote shows that Williamson and Garden Heights are very different. Williamson is a wealthy, majority-white school, and Garden Heights is a ghetto neighborhood, and she has to keep her Williamson personality away from her Garden Heights personality. Starr demonstrated leadership by adapting her identity in some