Thug Life

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 The title of the book is comes from Tupac's meaning of "Thug Life."  Before reading this book, I definitely knew who Tupac was, but I had no idea the meaning of "Thug Life."  Before Khalil is tragically killed, he tells Starr the meaning of Thug Life   "Pac said Thug Life stood for 'The Hate You Give Little Infants F Everybody.'"..."Listen, the Hate U - the letter U - Give Little Infants F's Everybody.  T-H-U-G-L-I-F-E.  Meaning what society give us as youth, it bites them in the ass when we wild out.  Get it?"  Starr understands what Khalil is saying, but it isn't until the death of Khalil, and what happens after that she really understands what message Tupac had.  Throughout the novel, Starr begins to see the reality of how evil the world can be.  She is very young and has lost two friends to gun violence, and the death of Khalil, I believe, affected her the most.  She sees the media as well as her friends, make him out to be a thug who basically deserved to be shot.  She even, for a moment, begins to view him as such.  When she finds out the truth as to why Khalil was selling drugs, I think the meaning of Thug Life becomes more clear to her.  Khalil was a product of society.  He had to do what he had to do in order to survive. His circumstances pretty much forced him into the life of selling drugs.  It was the only way he could provide for his family.  The novel really brings to light not just only the issues of police brutality, but also the issue of our children being failed by society.  Khalil was a child who came from a bad background, and no matter how hard he tried, he just could not overcome that.  Our society tends to overlook those children like Khalil.  Society automatically judges these kids, and thinks that they do things like selling drugs or joining a gang because they are violent and bad.  The sad reality of it is most of those kids are just looking for a way to keep their siblings fed, and for people to love and protect them since they do not have that security at home.  As a society we need to stop looking at people from just one angle, we need to look at the whole story, as it can be very detrimental to assume those things.  It can cause us to overlook a child who just needs some extra help and guidance.  If the police officer had not automatically looked at Khalil like that, we would have seen he and Starr both have a different outcome.

Comments

  1. Bekah LongSeptember 17, 2021 at 7:03 PM

    I really enjoyed this post Erin. You hit the nail on the head when you said that society overlooks these children and we are quick to label them without even knowing their why. Devante's story is similar. He becomes a product of his environment in order to provide for his family.

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  2. Samantha DouglasSeptember 17, 2021 at 10:01 PM

    A great read Erin and I loved your viewpoints! I also posted about this allusion and I am pretty excited to write about it in my essay. I feel that it can cover several topics and deep meanings. We share similar views in that it is not anyone specific at fault, but it is the system and society itself.

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