Double Consciousness in the novel The Hate U Give
“The Hate U Give” delves into the way police cruelty and organized criminalization of black bodies damage African American societies, portraying the struggle always felt by African Americans between who they are and how the world views them. The instances of the novel are mainly resonant in light of recent cases of police brutality, which have contributed to the loss of lives like the death of Trayvon Martin, which initiated the activist movement known as Black lives matter. The novel features Starr Carter as she bargains the outcome from the terrible police brutality experienced by her colleague Khalil. The book examines Starr’s struggles to finding her voice so that she can openly question police cruelty against African Americans
The novel is a new explanation of the media-generated story that always surrounds the mystery of young Black Americans at the custody of the police. The media always portray the victims of police brutality as thugs. Thomas questions this by turning around the phrase thugs. The title of the novel draws motivation from the Tupac Shakur for whom the phrase “Thug Life” denotes “The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everyone.” The protagonist Khalili describes how ‘what the people present to us as youth…bites them in the ass when we wild out (Shakur 39). This implies the sequence in which the youth are subjected to types of brutality, for instance, continuous unnecessary police attention and unwarranted disciplinary measures. This brutality happens in such a progressive manner that it twists their future, preparing them into culprits of violence. A lack of opportunity occasioned by continuous discrimination makes this young generation to join cliques and engage in drug trafficking to get money. Surprisingly, the pursuit of an improved standard of life that encourages engagement in criminal activities helps to aggravate the standard of living in the society to which those youths belong. Thomas’ depiction of Khalili criticizes the media’s stereotypical depiction of black teenagers and offers a civilization that is always robbed of the black youths. Khalili is a drug peddler, but we learn from the novel how is drug peddling is the only means he has of settling his mother’s arrears to the local criminal leader. Khalili is thus depicted as a victim defined and surrounded by his hostile environment instead of just as a rogue or a threat.
The text personally sounded with me well because it focuses on the concept of displaying a double identity. As a diasporic person, I have always have had my individuality split between the two ethnically distinct worlds. “The Hate U Give” is defined by W.E.B. Du Bois’ notion of double Consciousness (Bruce 299-309). Du Bois observes that there is a continuous pressure between how black people perceive themselves and how they are perceived by the people in which a large population are whites. Certainly, Starr progressively feels like she has to conceal her identity (blackness) when joining her school, predominantly white environment. She outlines how her voice is already changing. “I can never allow anyone to think I am ghetto” (Thomas, 195). She feels the necessity to modify her voice so that not to strengthen any stereotypes of blackness. This demonstrates the tension she feels to epitomize her race in an environment where she is a minority. She has to detach herself from Garden Heights, her mainly black and more needy district, to be embraced and accepted by her white friends. This anxiety is not internal but is justified by her experience, when she rewrites a post regarding the killing of Emmett Till on Tumblr, Hailey, her white peer unfollows her. Hailey represents white flimsiness through her decline to even admit the constant discrimination against the African American population that is manifest within her.
I came across the novel in an endeavor to revive my fascination with reading after two years of not going beyond my course material list. “The Hate U gave” belongs to the classification of the Young Adult genre, and such texts are always assumed by the syllabi of most learning institutions certainly because of perceived lack of extensiveness. However, I noted various comparisons between Thomas’ “The Hate U Give” and the books I was reading at college, challenging the hypothesis that it is shallow. For instance, Nella Larsen’s “Passing” as well as delves into the racial discrimination in the United States. “Passing” features, a black female who passes for a while female in public. This takes the cultural integration undertaken by Starr to another level. However, the Hate U Give presents a more contemporary picture of the existing racial hostilities in the United States. It is critical not to dismiss the personal view of the young black population from the discussion; to presume that there is one standardized black experience would be a severe generalization. Also, I was mesmerized by the exploitation of the first-person point of view, which, unlike Passing, could openly and question the continuous police brutality and racial discrimination in the United States. The first-person point of view in the novel closely puts the reader more directly in the speaker’s viewpoint, developing something of a relationship between the speaker and the reader. Thus, the reader can sympathize with Starr, who, within the individual narration of her feelings and thoughts, condemns continuous racism and police brutality demonstrated in the book.
The book can be instructed in a course associated with gender studies, where its modern picture on the progressive discrimination against the African American population, emanating from the leftovers of colonization, would present a vital standard. Moreover, the novel can be taught in a class associated with Young Adult Literature as it redirects the Young Adult category, a genre controlled by the stories of the white population. The Young Adult genre is always ignored in academic backgrounds, but “The Hate U Give” captivates with ideas tackled in various academic books authored on race and instructed in colleges. In addition to the link mentioned above to Dubois, we can think of “Black Skin White Masks” by Frantz Fanon, which demonstrates how for the African American, there is only a single destiny. And its white, according to Fanon, the black person has to understand the language and culture of their colonist, which is reinforced by the portrayal in the novel of Starr having to reform her behavior when joining her school, an environment in which she is not among the majority racial faction.
“The Hate U Give” presents a revolutionary take on the constant contemporary discrimination against African Americans, and assumes an essential deconstruction of the media theory revolving around police brutality against the young black population. It thus presents a more contemporary picture that is not available in the syllabi of postcolonial studies in institutions of higher learning. Moreover, Starr acts as an inspiring character through her struggle to exploiting her voice against racial discrimination and injustices in the United States. This provides a critical tool for modern youth as to how they can utilize their voice to question progressive discrimination against racial minorities.
Works Cited
“2Pac Interview About Definition OF Thug Life.” YouTube, 15 Nov. 2009, youtu.be/oX8Hv0ImG4Y. Accessed 11 May 2020.
Bruce, Dickson D. “W.E.B. Du Bois and the idea of double consciousness.” American Literature 64.2 (1992): 299-309.
Fanon, Frantz. Black skin, white masks. London: Paladin, 1970.
Gillespie, Margaret. “Gender, Race and Space in Nella Larsen’s Passing (1929).” Journal of Research in Gender Studies 5.2 (2015): 279-289.
Shakur, Sanyika. Thuglife. Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 2009.
Thomas, Angie. The hate u give. cbt Verlag, 2017.