“Know your rights. Know your worth.”
The center of The Hate U Give’s universe is Starr Carter (Amandla Stenberg), a 17 year old high school girl with one foot each in a different world — the inner city, mostly black neighborhood where she lives with her father Maverick (Russell Hornsby), mother Lisa (Regina Hall), and siblings Seven (Lamar Johnson) and Sekani (TJ Wright), and the wealthy, mostly white high school that she attends. After Starr witnesses the murder of her childhood friend Khalil (Algee Smith) at the hands of a police officer, she is left to the face the emotional fallout of the shooting and the decision of whether to speak truth to power and testify against the officer or attempt to save herself.
The Hate U Give is an effective examination of how code-switching affects the lives of young people of color who have the added burden of trying to figure out just who they are and they want to be in general. Black Americans that spend a substantial amount of time in majority-white spaces experience a sort of duality where they have one side of themselves that they share with those who are not like them and do not share their culture, and another when they return to familiar surroundings. This commonly referred to as code switching, a behavior practice that promotes blending in in order to survive and flourish in a society that may not be as accepting of cultural aspects that differ from what is mainstream. Starr navigates this reality for black Americans pretty smoothly until Khalil’s murder, when she is forced to confront an aspect of blackness in America that can never be turned off. This shift in Starr’s reality is indicative of how black people who are forced to operate in these disparate spaces can at times become squeezed between the two sides; trying to serve both their authentic selves and do what they have to for professional success. Code switching is something that black people and other minorities engage in as a form of protection, whether it’s an anglicized name to ensure you’re taken seriously in the workplace or changing your vocal inflection to make others more comfortable. But Khalil’s death makes Starr question at what point do your responsibilities to your community, and more importantly to yourself, make it so that you can stop focusing on making others comfortable and forcing them to consider your comfort and humanity for once? Code switching centers the comfort of others at the expense of yourself and Khalil’s death is the impetus for Starr’s realization that the comfort of people like her is worthy of consideration as well.
No relationship in the film reflects Starr’s dual existence like her friendship with her basketball teammate Hailey. Hailey is a young white girl with a penchant for using black slang to better connect with Starr and give herself an air relatability and coolness. This has the effect of making it seem to Starr as if Hailey truly cares for Starr and regards her as a friend and peer. But as Starr’s life begins to change and is impacted by real world racial issues amidst the fallout from Khalil’s death, Hailey’s behavior is exposed as less than a person trying to connect with someone they care for and more of a microaggression indicative of her regarding Starr and her culture as an “other”; a curiosity to be played with and discarded at will. When confronted with the murkiness of Khalil’s shooting, Hailey reveals her true feelings on black people as a whole, commenting that Khalil was a drug dealer that the police were right to fear and shoot and her view of Starr as someone “different” than what she believes a typical black person is. This is a common attitude of white people with black friends, a compartmentalization of their feelings toward their black individuals from their feelings on the group as a whole. And like these real-life examples, Hailey reacts uncomfortably when forced to consider and recognize that blackness is an inherent and important aspect of Starr’s identity and an aspect of her personhood that cannot be ignored. As their friendship strains, Hailey remarks that it is because she “Doesn’t know who the hell [Starr] is anymore.” However, if her refusal to consider or acknowledge Starr’s race and how that effects the way she navigates the world and how the world regards her was such a large part of her friendship with Starr, then she never really knew her in the first place. This complication of existing in majority-white spaces is something that is a reality for many black people and is something that is well depicted in The Hate U Give. Maintaining two separate versions of you can lead to two segments of people knowing someone who is physically the same, but two different people entirely when it comes to personality and behavior. One segment may feel they have you pegged but in reality, may have never seen or interacted with an integral part of who you are.
Stenberg is the vocal point of the film and her performance lives up to her top billing. The role of Starr requires a lot of heavy lifting, the ability to properly display the roller-coaster of emotion of a young person who has just experienced a traumatic event and is now picking up the pieces afterward, in addition to the everyday struggles of discovering their identity and who they want to be. Stenberg ushers the viewer into Starr’s world and empathetically shares her pain while conveying the many directions Starr is being pulled in by her family, community, and life in general. And as Starr balances her duality in two differing worlds, Stenberg is able to convincingly do the same, portraying a young black woman who code switches depending on the surrounding company and environment. Hornsby gives the second notable performance as Maverick, a strong family man who has left his street past behind in an effort to provide his children with the life he never had the chance to live. His depiction of Maverick is a beautiful portrayal of the the strength and confidence that a strong father figure can have for a family as a whole, not just for young boys as is typically portrayed. Regina Hall is also strong as a supporting character, the matriarch of the Carter family, fighting to prevent both her husband and daughter from succumbing to the streets.
