Episode 24: Banned Book Review #5: The Hate U Give

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Foreign welcome to another episode of K12 Education Untangled. My name is Dr. Kim Fields, former corporate manager turned educational researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators, as well as the microdiscriminations that I had as an African American mom raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to know how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. If you're looking to find out more information about current topics in education that could affect you or your children and the practical actions that you can take to address these issues, then you're in the right place. In today's episode, I will review another book from a banned book list. This time the book is the HATE you Give by Angie Thomas. The intent of this and other monthly book reviews is to examine, to analyze, and to investigate why these books were on the band book list for K 12 public school reading. The main characters in this book are Star Kenya, who shares an older brother with Star. His name is Seven. Star's father, Big Mav is Seven's father. Kenya's mother Aisha is Seven's mother. The relationship intertwining of these two children and their parents was interesting, but the dynamic was real. Other main characters were Starr's mother Lisa, Starr's Uncle Carlos and Starr's younger brother Sakani. Starr has two best friends, Maya and Haley, and a childhood friend, Khalil. The last main character in the book is the neighborhood drug lord King. The setting for the book takes place in Garden Heights. Starr is a 16 year old teenager, African American who attends Williamson Prep, which is a predominantly white school and where she's on the basketball team. She says that it's funny with white kids though it's dope to be black until it's hard to be black. It's hard to understand also why drug lords fight over streets that nobody owns. Starr has a boyfriend, his name is Chris and he's white. He is rich and he also attends Williamson Prep. The Williamson star doesn't use slang. If she did, her classmates would consider her hood. The Williamson star holds her tongue when people pass her off so nobody will think she's the angry black girl she holds her tongue when people also anger her so that she's not considered the angry black girl. The Williamson prep star is approachable and non confrontational. The Williamson Starr doesn't give anyone a reason to call her ghetto. Starr's friend Khalil gets killed by police after being pulled over for a broken tail light. Starr was in the car and witnessed the whole thing. She wondered if Khalil would get justice. She was told by her parents that that people like us in situations like this become hashtags, but they rarely get justice. Starr felt that she didn't do enough to get justice for Khalil's death. But her mother told her that she did everything right. Her mother said that sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right. The Hate U Give is about the attitudes of white America and corporate America toward poor people and people of color. It exposes the lack of opportunities and a system that's designed against this segment of society. Unless things change, this segment of society continues to get the raw end of the deal. And that's why, in Starr's opinion, you can't be silent. The characterization of Starr's grandmother Nana is hilarious. The storytelling of what she says and what she does is so relevant to those of us who have grandmothers that we were around any length time and remember the antics and the things that they said, most of which was wisdom induced. As Starr listens to the father of the police officer who shot Khalil talking on TV about his son. Just wanted to make a difference in the lives of people who lived in Garden Heights. Starr thought, hmm, funny slave masters thought that they were making a difference in black people's lives too. Saving them from their, quote, wild African ways. It's the same stuff, just different century. She wishes that people like them would stop thinking that people like her needs saving. Starr's friend Haley is a racist who doesn't get checked. She doesn't think of herself as a racist though. And Starr says that's the problem. We let people say stuff and they say so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us. She surmises, what's the point of having a voice if you're going to be silent in those moments? You shouldn't be. Lisa, who's Starr's mom, explains why she stayed with her husband after he had an affair that produced Starr's older brother, seven. Lisa explained that she learned that people make mistakes and you have to decide if their mistakes are bigger than your love for them. Starr reasoned on this and accepted what her mother explained. Starr feels threatened to testify at the grand jury about the killing of Khalil, but her father asked her to recite some points from the Black Panther mantras as well as quotes from Malcolm King to motivate her. One of those quotes was that intentions always looks better on paper than in reality. And being brave doesn't mean that you're not scared. It just means that you go on even though you are scared. Starr did testify before the grand jury on one occasion. Starr's friends came over to her Uncle Carlos's house far a barbecue and for her brother's seventh birthday. And at that event, she feels finally comfortable being herself with her friends and her family in the same environment. No longer was she Williamson Prep Star or at home in Garden Heights Star. She was just Star. She no longer feels that she has to speak a certain way for her school friends and a different way for her family. The grand jury's decision finally comes in. After several months of waiting, they decided not to indict the officer that shot and killed Khalil. Everybody is angry, including 7 Devonte, who was recently beat up by King because he stole $5,000 from him, Kenya, and especially Starr. Chris, who's Starr's boyfriend, was with them when they heard about the verdict, and he's angry also, but he doesn't really understand why the neighborhood, the community and the gangbangers are reacting in the way that they are. The rioting and looting began during the course of the rioting, King sets Big Mav's store on fire and basically destroys it. King and his boys watched the fire destroy the store. However, when the police arrived, witnesses actually came forth to say that they saw King throw a Molotov cocktail that started the fire. King and his crew got arrested. The firemen do their best to save as much of the store as they can, although Mr. Lewis's barbershop, which he owns and is next door to the store, is partly destroyed by the fire. Although Starr and her family have moved out of Garden Heights toward the end of the book, the residents in Garden Heights say that there's still a need for the store since everyone else has moved out of the neighborhood. Mr. Lewis is also willing to give the space of the barbershop to Mav in order for the store to survive. In the end of the story, the decision was made to rebuild the store in order to serve the neighborhood. Here are my overall impressions of this book. This is a long book, 480 pages to be exact, but the reading is quite engaging as the story draws you in. Angie Thomas is an excellent storyteller. The book is a goodreads Choice Awards Best of the Best Book, a William C. Morris Award Winner, a National Book Award Long List, a Prince Honor Book, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book and a New York Times one Bestseller. The title of the book comes from a saying by Tupac as he explains what the thug life stood for. A great deal of the book discusses Khalil and the events that led up to his death. But it's not just about Khalil. It's about all the other young African American kids who were killed by police and the reactions of the black community toward those deaths. It's about continuing the fight for injustice and to raise voices in protest. It's about continuing the struggle knowing that voices matter, dreams matter, and lives matter. There is light in the midst of darkness. This book is about young people, especially young black girls who could identify with Star, as well as other races who have struggled with racial bias. The book can help them check themselves because reading diverse literature is a powerful thing. I think this book is definitely one worth reading because it gives such a colorful and often realistic description of African American family life, especially the dialogue and family dynamics, the friendships, the struggles and the phenomena that occur in certain environments on a daily basis. It provides the perspective of a young teenage African American girl who struggles with her identity within the family and within her school environment. She's well coached and well supported by her parents, her older brother and her best friend Maya. The main character, Star basically grows into accepting who she is and using her voice for good. I think the book provides a powerful depiction of a young, strong African American girl that other middle schoolers and high schoolers can identify with and relate to. If this is the type of subject matter and discussion that resonates with you, please subscribe to my podcast on whatever service you're listening to this. Also, I'd love to hear from you, so please leave me a comment, a rating or a review and share this episode with anyone that you think would find it valuable. Be sure to tell your friends, family and community about my podcast. Thanks for listening today. I hope you'll come back for more K12 educational discussions with even more exciting topics to untangle. By the way, if you have an urgent question about a current issue or a specific topic that you'd like me to cover and explore, shoot me a quick email@kimberationthrougheducation.com to let me know what your question is. 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