The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

This is a book that has created a lot of buzz. It was published in 2017 and almost immediately started winning awards. Part of the buzz had to do with its subject matter; it is a YA book very much about the Black Lives Matter movement. In my experience, books focused on a single main social issue are either a real slog or absolutely brilliant. In this case, it's brilliant.

Starr is a 16 year old African-american girl living in Garden Heights (a.k.a the Ghetto) but she goes to a private prep school across town. She lives in two worlds with two languages, two cultures, and two sets of behavior standards. This, of course, causes conflict. Her friends from Garden Heights think she's ashamed of them and the kids at school never get to see the real her, not even Chris, her white boyfriend.

The novel opens on a party in Garden Heights where Starr sneaks out of the house to go to. While she's there, feeling awkward, she runs into Khalil who is a boy she's grown up with and is very close to. While they are talking, a gun is fired at the party. Khalil whisks Starr away to his car to take her home. On the way home, they are pulled over by a white police officer and Khalil ends up dead. They didn't do anything wrong really, there was no real reason to shoot him. The rest of the book is about what Starr does and what she experiences.

To say that this is a powerful book is an understatement. It's thought provoking which is even better. I'm white, which I mention because it's relevant to my experience. I don't think of myself as racist and I don't think I am racist, but I know I've been guilty of saying or being insensitive. I'm human, it happens. It's true I don't know what it's like to be black which is something that Starr says to Chris in the book. That's why books like this are important, I think. I still don't really know what it's like to be black, but books like this give me a little more insight than I had before I read them.

It's also true though that a black person doesn't know what it's like to be white. I think the core of the problem is a whole base of assumptions. We are all, regardless of skin color, raised with certain assumptions. Some of them are right most of the time, some of them a right part of the time, and some of them are only rarely correct.

It all reminds me of when I worked back at the library. One of the policies was a bag check before exiting. That was because there were a number of incredibly rare books floating around the collection at the time which was a problem, particularly because the security stripping didn't always work. I applied the policy evenly and without regard to anything. I checked professors, students, visitors, and personal friends. It didn't matter who, the policy was the policy and I did my best to enforce it. I'm not sure everyone did, but I know that I did. So when I got called racist several times it made me a little indignant. I wasn't checking their bag because of skin color, I checked everyone's bag, but then I suppose they had no real way of knowing that. They made an assumption about me probably at least partly based on the color of my skin. The problem wasn't my skin or theirs...the problem is in the assumption and the assumptions run both ways.

It seems that Thomas is cognizant of this, though, in the way she handles the two white characters Hailey and Chris. While this isn't the main thrust of the book, I found that the handling of those two side characters was masterful. I also really enjoyed the analysis of Tupac lyrics, lol.

Clearly, I'm still processing...but seriously guys, read the book.