The Hate U Give

That afternoon, tanks arrive in the neighborhood, as if the police expect to go to war against the protestors. At home, Mav asks Starr for her old laptop, which he wants to repurpose for DeVante. While retrieving it, she gets on Tumblr and uploads pictures of Khalil from when they were children. She does not put her name on the posts, but hundreds of people like and repost the images.

The District Attorney calls to say that she wants to meet with Starr. Starr agrees, but the family decides that she should talk to April Ofrah first. Starr then asks her mother for a day off school; she agrees.

Lisa and Mav take Starr to see April Ofrah at the Just Us for Justice headquarters, located in an old Taco Bell. April explains the work the group to win justice for Khalil’s murder. She then explains that the DA wants her to testify to a grand jury, which will ultimately decide if Officer 115 will be charged with any crime.

Starr is concerned by news reports that Khalil had a gun, which he didn’t. April explains it was his hairbrush and that the officer claimed that it looked like a gun. She then tells the family that Officer 115’s father plans to give an interview on TV. Starr realizes that the father will try to make the officer look like the victim, not Khalil, and that “the only way people will know his side of the story is if [she] speaks out” (218).

April says she will secure Starr an interview, but there will be no names, and they will disguise her voice to protect her privacy.

At the store, Mr. Lewis suffers injuries at the hands of King Lords. He is hurt but refuses to go to the hospital, instead bragging that it took five of them to bring him down. He also says that the gang members didn’t want to kill him—they wanted to kill DeVante.

Furious, Mav demands to know the full story as to why DeVante is in hiding. DeVante admits that he stole $5,000 from King, which he used to get his family out of the neighborhood and to a safer place. Though angry, Mav understands. He says they need to get DeVante out of their house. Instead, they take him to Carlos. When they arrive, Starr notes that her uncle’s knuckles are bruised. DeVante is skeptical of Carlos at first because he is a cop. However, he is impressed by the size of his house and asks how Carlos got it. Carlos tells the family that he is on leave from the police station.

Meanwhile, Chris comes to the door, having seen the car arrive. Mav wants to know who he is, and Starr musters the courage to tell him that Chris is her boyfriend. Mav is furious at the news that her boyfriend is white, especially when he finds out that everyone else in the family knew, including Carlos. Lisa takes Mav outside to cool down, and Chris asks about DeVante, who also makes a remark about Starr dating a white boy. Outside, they can hear her parents arguing about Chris. Chris then asks if this is a “black thing” he wouldn’t understand (230). Starr explains that race isn’t a Black thing and points out that he and his parents discussed the fact that his girlfriend was Black, too.

Outside, Lisa and Mav argue about leaving Garden Heights altogether. Lisa is upset that Mav got DeVante out but won’t move his own children out of danger. Angry, Mav storms in, tells Starr they will talk later, and leaves. Obviously nervous, Chris stays by Starr’s side. Once they are alone, they kiss but are caught by Lisa. Embarrassed, Chris leaves. Lisa asks Starr if she takes her birth control.

DeVante returns and asks Starr why she doesn’t date a Garden Heights boy. He then says that Khalil talked to him about Starr a lot. She assumes they knew each other because they were both King Lords, but DeVante explains that Khalil never became a King Lord, even though King asked him to join. King only came to the funeral and laid the bandana on Khalil to save face.

He also explains that Khalil started selling drugs because his mother stole from King, and he had to pay him back. Hearing all of this, Starr is upset that she thought the worst of Khalil, just like so many people had.

DeVante admits that while he is a “thug” unlike Khalil, the King Lords offered him and his brother the only family they ever knew. Now his brother is dead, which is why he wanted to save the rest of his family.

Starr walks to Maya’s house and sees Hailey’s car in the driveway. Mrs. Yang lets her in, and Maya runs downstairs to hug her. They go upstairs to Maya’s room, and Starr awkwardly greets Hailey. When Starr asks about the protest at school, Hailey is defensive. Maya understands why Starr is upset and apologizes for using the protest as a way to cut class, but Hailey refuses to apologize. Instead, she once again wants Starr to apologize to her for calling her a racist.

Starr will not apologize for how she felt. Unable to agree, they decide to watch TV. As they flip through channels, they land on the interview with Officer 115’s father. He says that his son, a 16-year veteran of the force, feared for his life. He worked in Garden Heights all that time and only wanted to make a difference in the notoriously dangerous neighborhood. Starr thinks about how “slave masters thought they were making a difference in people’s lives, too” (245).

The father tells an exaggerated version of events, claiming that the officer pulled them over for speeding and that Starr and Khalil cursed at him. The entire interview makes the two of them out to be monsters, while Officer 115 seems like a victim; as a result, Starr struggles not to cry. The father says his son faced backlash and is afraid to go to the store. He suffered physical and verbal attacks. Hearing this, Starr realizes that Uncle Carlos’s knuckles were bruised because he hit 115, which is why he is on leave.

When the interview ends, Hailey expresses sympathy for the family on TV. Starr is shocked, but Hailey says that Officer 115’s life matters, too. Furious, Starr starts to leave, but Maya stops her. Starr asks Hailey why she unfollowed her on Tumblr after she posted the Emmett Till picture. Again, Hailey grows defensive, saying that Starr implied she is racist again. Starr says she never mentioned race. Hailey storms out, adding that she doesn’t like who Starr is anymore.

Maya says that Hailey is lying and that she unfollowed Starr because of all the “black stuff” on her Tumblr (250). She says it’s not the first time Hailey was casually racist. She tells Starr about an incident during freshman year when Hailey asked Maya if her family eats cats because they are Asian. Hailey laughed like it was a joke, and so Maya laughed too out of obligation. Together, they decide that they can’t let Hailey get away with saying things like that anymore. They decide to form a “minority alliance” (252).

Walking home later, Starr meets Uncle Carlos on the stoop of his house as he drinks a beer, which is unusual for him given that his mother was addicted to alcohol. He tells Starr that he punched Officer 115 for pointing his gun at her. He also feels bad about what he said previously about Khalil and says, “I hate that I let myself fall into that mindset of trying to rationalize his death. And at the end of the day, you don’t kill someone for opening a car door” (256). He tells Starr that he would not have killed Khalil. Starr hugs him and tries not to cry.

Before they go to the DA’s office the next morning, Lisa takes Starr to IHOP, just like she used to before Sekani was born. Starr then tells her about Hailey, which does not surprise her mother. She explains how Hailey always pushed Starr and Maya around and that the two of them always fell over themselves to please her. Starr doesn’t know if she can forgive Hailey, and Lisa tells her: “you have to decide if the relationship is worth salvaging. Make a list of the good stuff, then make a list of the bad stuff. If one outweighs the other, then you know what you gotta do” (264). She says that she used this method when she went back to Mav after he slept with Iesha. Her love was bigger than his mistake.

Later, District Attorney Karen Monroe and April Ofrah meet them at the DA’s office. After the DA explains the grand jury process, Starr tells her the story of Khalil’s murder. Near the end, she vomits and cries.

After the meeting, Starr accompanies Mav to the store. While there, they talk about Chris. Mav explains his dislike of Chris. He worries that Starr chose him because Mav didn’t set a good example of what a Black man should be. Starr denies this, telling him that he was a good example of a man, period.

King pulls up to the store and asks Mav where DeVante is. Mav denies any knowledge. King then says that he knows that Starr is the witness and doesn’t want her saying too much about Khalil’s involvement with drugs since it will lead back to King. Following a tense standoff between him and Mav, King leaves.

After dinner that night, Lisa reveals that she interviewed for a much better-paying job at Markham Memorial Hospital. Mav tells her that they will go look for a new house away from Garden Heights before her next interview.

Although the family is happy about this news, Seven tells Starr that he won’t leave Garden Heights with the rest of them. Rather than go away to college as planned, he will stay and go to community college to protect his sisters, Kenya and Lyric, and his mother, Iesha.