The Hate U Give: Inspiring Change in the Classroom

 "The Hate U Give Little Infants F---s Everybody... 'Khalil said it's about what society feeds us as youth and how it comes back and bites them later,' I say. 'I think it's more than youth though. I think it's about us, period.' 'Us who?' he asks. 'Black people, minorities, poor people. Everybody at the bottom in society.' 'The oppressed,' says Daddy" (Thomas, 168). 

Not only does the novel The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas address the issues of social injustice, but it also shows the hard truth of what minorities are faced with. The issues faced in the novel are too close for comfort when we compare them with what is happening in today's society. As educators of all types of youth, this book describes what our students face everyday. So many students are like Starr in the sense that they have seen death with no justice. They have heard the same excuses as to why their family members were shot and killed, and they have had to live without the ones that they care about. This is our students and it is our duty as teachers to help them know that they are not alone and empower them to speak out against the injustice that they are faced with. 

George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Stephon Clarke: these are just some of the names of the people whose lives have been taken by the police, and whose families have suffered because they were ripped from life too soon. These deaths matter, just like Khalil's death matters in the novel. Just like Khalil, they are labeled by others as "thugs," "drug-dealers," "a threat;" and just like Khalil, these men and women's deaths became unimportant to some, because of these labels. Mind you that they were all killed by the police, and neither of them, like Khalil "pull[ed] the trigger on [themselves] either" (Thomas, 100).  However, they are still seen by society, typically white society, as people who died because they were doing something wrong. As educators, it is important for us to use what Thomas has written to empower our students to speak out against the injustices that they see in our society. The Hate U Give can be used in the classroom to show students how important it is to speak out against injustices. Many students have been in the same situation as Starr, whereas others have only been able to see from the outside in. It is our job as teachers to make the connections. To show students who have experienced these heartbreaks that they are not alone, and to inform students who do not have these personal experiences, on why it is important for them to speak up. 

While there are some of us who try to see past what the media says and see past the labels, there are also some of us who are like Hailey in the novel. Thomas uses Hailey in the novel to show a typical white perspective on African American deaths in America. Like Hailey, we proclaim ourselves to be non-racists, yet we find our internal biases are what actually control how we think. We look at what the media says and believe that we know the entire story, when in fact it is only a glimpse into a story that may or may not be true. Hailey says "I mean, it's kinda messed up that we're protesting a drug dealer's death, but--" (Thomas, 183). To Hailey, Khalil is just a "drug dealer" who unfortunately died, but to Starr, she knows he is so much more than the label that was given to him. So many times we find ourselves dealing with, or being "Haileys" in society: not seeing the entire picture, just assuming what we think we know. Like Kahlil's death in the novel, the death of Floyd, Taylor, and Clarke, were mislabeled and many in our society were like Hailey: trying to blame the victim for their own death. As educators it is important that we encourage our students to not just look at what media is showing us, but really dig deep to find the truth about the injustices we see. 

Finally, we must encourage our students to act and speak out in order to help create change. In The Hate U Give, Starr says "I wanna do something,... protest, riot, I don't care--" (Thomas, 389). Like Starr, so many of our students want to do something. They want to speak out and help fight against injustices, but they are unsure as to how or they are dismissed as being too young to understand what is actually happening. It is important that we help to build up confidence in our students and encourage them to stand up for what they believe in, not tear them down.