Meet you at the Boxing Gym

By -

 


Throughout the course of the book, Starr was constantly internally fighting with the two sides of her and her life. Almost like a boxing match with Williamson Starr in one corner and Garden Heights Starr in the other. Depending on which Starr is present at the time, she always has half of her true self locked away from those around her. She does not want her Garden Heights side to come through while she is with her Williamson crowd, and she does not want her Williamson side to shine through with she is with her Garden Heights group. Her constantly hiding half of who she is catches up with her when her friend Khalil is killed and she wants to take a stand for him and those in her Garden Heights community. 

Me, being a white middle class female, found it tough to relate to many of the things happening in the book because I have never had to experience or be put through many of the situations that Starr has had to go through. I would say that the code-switching that Starr is constantly doing throughout the book was one of the only elements that I really had a connection with. My first two years of college, I constantly found myself having to code-switch and hide parts of myself depending on who I was talking to. I could not be the crazy girl who speaks her mind using whatever words she pleased or be so open and honest about things to my parents as I was with my friends. I found myself always having to hide half of who I was around my parents in fear of rejection and disappointment. As Starr said, "Being two different people is so exhausting. I've taught myself to speak with two different voices and only say certain things around certain people. I've mastered it," which is so true. (Thomas 301) It was super exhausting and difficult. It wasn't until my two worlds collided, and my friends asking why I acted so different with them when I was around my parents, that I had to make the choice to either never have my friends and my parents be together or let my parents see the half of me that I keep locked away from them. After much thought, I knew I would rather chance showing my parents how wild and crazy I was than to never have my friends and family come together with me. My parents ended up finding this side of me so happy and lively which is something that they say they missed about me from when I was little. Because of this choice that I made, I now do not have to worry about hiding pieces of myself in fear of being judged for all of me. 

To see Starr struggling with this kind of hit home for me. My situation definitely was not near as serious and large as hers, but it was just so nice that this was something that I could use to relate to her as a character. 

Comments

  1. Samantha DouglasSeptember 17, 2021 at 10:12 PM

    Never hide your true self! I loved the comparison in showing your true self and how Starr eventually showed hers as well. She was able to find her voice and fight for what she believed in.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Shaekwon HeardSeptember 19, 2021 at 4:32 PM

    Hi, friend! I love getting a little bit of your perspective as someone who doesn't relate much to this book. Your wild and crazy side that you keep away from your parents is just as much who you are as what you didn't show them. I'm super happy that chancing that worked out well for you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Abby MardisSeptember 20, 2021 at 12:29 PM

    I am glad that you were finally able to open up and be yourself!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm
Read more

Speak and the Symbolism of Nature

By Anonymous -
   Laurie Halse Anderson's,  Speak , dives into the murky, muddy waters of adolescent rape culture. When the book was published in 1999, rape was not a comfortable topic to discuss with adults, let alone teenagers. Anderson writes about Melinda Sordino and her freshman high school experience which is turning out to be rather negative. Soriano stands as a thriving young role model for struggling teenage girls all over the world. Although she isn't an outstanding student or have plenty of friends to juggle, through Melinda, other young women can see that it's completely normal and okay to struggle in high school not only academically, but socially and emotionally. One of my favorite parts of the novel isn't a super obvious quality. Throughout the novel, Melinda's attitude changes and grows with the coming of spring and through nature and art, she learns to move past her troubling end of summer experience and once again find the importance of her voice.    Melinda st
Read more