The author, Angie Thomas, chose to tackle burning issues, highlighting social fractures, the weaknesses of the judicial and penitentiary systems, gangs, the ordinary and institutional racism, racial profiling or even police brutality. Starr, the only witness of the murder, therefore sees her two worlds collide as she defends Khalil’s memory against the police who wants to cover up the case. Again, a white police officer stops the car of a young black driver and kills him, believing himself threatened, whereas Khalil was unarmed and had committed no offense. The murder scene seems familiar, and with good reason! It is reminiscent of the dozens of similar testimonies that are part of the daily life of urban Black communities in the United States.
The very beginning of the film recalls a classic teen movie between warm colors and teens’ problems, but the plot quickly takes a darker turn as Starr witnesses helplessly the death of her best friend Khalil. Indeed, if Starr comes from a poor residential area where life is punctuated by gang wars, she also attends a private high school with privileged and mostly white pupils. The story features Starr Carter, a 16-year-old African-American girl who grows up straddling two worlds.
It is therefore no surprise that a film adaptation was made one year later by George Tillman Jr, choosing the actress Amandla Stenberg for the lead role. Published in 2017, The Hate U Give has quickly become an international best-seller. Indeed, Angie Thomas started writing this novel in 2009 after the death of Oscar Grant, a black man killed during a police arrest, as was George Floyd on 25th May 2020, more than 10 years later. The topics addressed in The Hate U Give – racial profiling, police brutality, social tensions – resonate so much with current events that we cannot but notice how much history repeats itself.
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