The Hate U Give - Dindu Nuffin: the book

[💗Freddie Freaker💗]

Has anyone else read it? I just finished it and it felt like a poorly written propaganda piece.

Starr Carter is a 16-year-old African American girl who lives in the fictional, mostly poor black neighborhood of Garden Heights, but attends an affluent, predominantly white private school, Williamson Prep. After the police break up a party Starr is attending one weekend, Starr is driven home by her childhood best friend, Khalil. On the way home, they are stopped by a white police officer. The officer has Khalil, who is also African-American, exit the car; while outside the car, Khalil leans into the window of the driver-side door to check in on Starr. The officer fires three shots into Khalil, killing him.

Khalil's death becomes a major national news story. The media portrays Khalil as a gang banger and drug dealer, while more favorably portraying the white officer who killed him. Starr's identity as the witness is initially kept secret from just about everyone outside Starr's family, even her younger brother Sekani – leaving Starr's two best friends, Hailey Grant and Maya Yang, and Starr's white boyfriend, Chris, who all attend Williamson Prep together, all unaware of Starr's connection to the news story. Having to keep this secret weighs on Starr, as does her need to keep her Williamson and Garden Heights personas separate. Starr's struggles with her identity are further complicated after her mother Lisa leaves her job as a nurse in a Garden Heights clinic for a high-paying hospital job and the family moves out of the neighborhood.

Starr agrees to be interviewed by two detectives about the shooting after being encouraged by her Uncle Carlos, who is also a detective. Carlos was a father figure to Starr when her father, Maverick, spent three years in prison for gang activity. Following his release, Maverick leaves the gang and becomes the owner of the Garden Heights grocery store where Starr and her half-brother Seven work. Maverick was only allowed to leave his gang, the King Lords because he admitted to a crime even though he was innocent; this kept gang leader King from being locked up. King, widely feared in the neighborhood, now lives with Seven's mother, Seven's half-sister Kenya, who is friends with Starr, and Kenya’s little sister, Lyric.

After a grand jury fails to indict the white officer, Garden Heights erupts into both peaceful protests and riots. The failure of the criminal justice system to hold the officer accountable pushes Starr to take an increasingly public role, first giving an interview and then speaking out during the protests, which are met by police in riot gear. Her increasing identification with the people of Garden Heights causes tension with Starr's friends and especially with her boyfriend Chris. By the end of the novel, Starr and Maya have started standing up to Hailey's racist comments and Chris remains supportive of Starr.

The climax of the novel occurs during the riot following the grand jury results. Starr, Chris, Seven, and DeVante, a member of the King Lords who Maverick helps to escape the gang by having DeVante live with Carlos, successfully defend Maverick's store from King. The neighborhood stands up to King and thanks to testimony by DeVante, King is arrested and expected to be imprisoned for a long time. Starr promises to keep Khalil's memory alive and to continue her advocacy against injustice.

Throughout the book we're supposed to see Starr and her family as noble heroes and the cop as a villain, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the cop was justified in shooting Khalil because of the circumstances. The confrontation occured in the middle of the night in the most ghetto part of the ghetto, shortly after a gang murdered someone at a party. Khalil wouldn't listen to instructions and spooked the officer. It wasn't a race thing, in my opinion-- it was a class thing. A cop in a neighborhood full of white crackheads and gangsters would likely act the same way this cop did in the black ghetto. The fact that Starr's policeman uncle said he used to be friends with him lends credence to the theory that the policeman wasn't abusing his power or being a racist, he had simply made a mistake due to fear. The characters often talk about how the white man is keeping them down but they seem to forget that in their neighborhood, most violence comes from black gangsters.

And now for some quotes!

And who's supposed to believe a grown man was that scared of two children?

This was shortly after neighborhood "children" were shown to be dangerous motherfuckers.

We turn around, and my breath catches. “Shit.”

There are two of them. They look thirteen, fourteen years old and are wearing green Celtics jerseys. Garden Disciples, no doubt. They cross the courts, coming straight for us.

The tallest one steps to Seven. “Nigga, you Kinging?”

I can’t even take this fool seriously. His voice squeaks. Daddy says there’s a trick to telling OGs from Young Gs, besides their age. OGs don’t start stuff, they finish it. Young Gs always start stuff.

“Nah, I’m neutral,” Seven says.

“Ain’t King your daddy?” the shorter one asks.

“Hell, no. He just messing with my momma.”

“It don’t even matter.” The tall one flicks out a pocket knife. “Hand your shit over. Sneakers, phones, everything.”

Rule of the Garden—if it doesn’t involve you, it doesn’t have shit to do with you. Period. The King Lords in the Escalade see everything going down. Since we don’t claim their set, we don’t exist.

But the boy on the merry-go-round runs over and pushes the GDs back. He lifts up his shirt, flashing his piece. “We got a problem?”

Thoughts?

Here's the whole book for free, if you're curious:

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (page_1)-Popular Free Online Books

The Hate U GiveAngie ThomasDEDICATIONFor Grandma, who showed methere can be light in the darknessPART 1WHEN IT HA...

6booksy.com

 

[AbyssStarer]

Has anyone else read it? I just finished it and it felt like a poorly written propaganda piece.

View attachment 690872

Thoughts?

Bookstores have plenty of shit like this floating around, it's a shame it gets put on aisle endcaps and displayed on tables. What you describe sounds exactly what I'd expect. I hope in the future literature like this gets labeled as biased propaganda. I haven't read it, and wouldn't want to, but I do wonder if there's any dirt on the author.

On another note, I read a book in school that has themes of racism. The book is called The Tortilla Curtain and was a legitimately good book with compelling storytelling; the audiobook read by the author is great. It actually has perspectives from both whites and mexicans, both go through terrible events, and it ends on a note of mutual recognized humanity.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

Wasn't this made into a movie or some shit?

 

[💗Freddie Freaker💗]

Bookstores have plenty of shit like this floating around, it's a shame it gets put on aisle endcaps and displayed on tables. What you describe sounds exactly what I'd expect. I hope in the future literature like this gets labeled as biased propaganda. I haven't read it, and wouldn't want to, but I do wonder if there's any dirt on the author.

On another note, I read a book in school that has themes of racism. The book is called The Tortilla Curtain and was a legitimately good book with compelling storytelling; the audiobook read by the author is great. It actually has perspectives from both whites and mexicans, both go through terrible events, and it ends on a note of mutual recognized humanity.

The author is Angie Thomas. The Hate U Give won many prizes and was turned into a movie, surprisingly enough. Middle schools are telling kids to write essays on it.

Angie Thomas | YA Author of THE HATE U GIVE

Angie Thomas is the author of the #1 NYT-bestselling debut, THE HATE U GIVE

angiethomas.com

Angie Thomas

Angie Thomas. 17,041 likes · 208 talking about this. Angie Thomas, Author/Writer/Producer. The Hate U Give, On the Come Up, and more

www.facebook.com

Angie Thomas (@angiethomas) • Instagram photos and videos

105.1k Followers, 1,180 Following, 1,011 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Angie Thomas (@angiethomas)

www.instagram.com

https://twitter.com/angiecthomas?

 

[Dolphin Lundgren]

I don't think I can even sit through this for free. (Since's it on Amazon Prime.)

 

[💗Freddie Freaker💗]

I don't think I can even sit through this for free. (Since's it on Amazon Prime.)

It's interesting if you look at it from an anthropological standpoint. It's dumb black lives matter propaganda, but the fact that it's being hailed as a masterpiece says a lot about America's values.

 

[JambledUpWords]

The author is Angie Thomas. The Hate U Give won many prizes and was turned into a movie, surprisingly enough. Middle schools are telling kids to write essays on it.

That isn’t surprising at all that middle schools would be assigning essays based on this movie. Nowadays, there’s always some part of English class that discusses racism to some extent and it usually involves watching a movie or reading a book about the subject. That said, there are much better books out there that discuss racism in a more nuanced and less heavy-handed way than The Hate U Give does. Based on the description of the book, it doesn’t seem worth it to read.

 

[queue-anon]

One aspect of the book I found interesting was the main character having to behave differently at her white school and with her friends at that school than she could in her own neighborhood. But I’d didn’t think the book was particularly well written. It seems like a lot of diversity book contracts are going to writers who don’t deserve it. What’s ironic though is that I bet the main target audience for these books is white. White people want to feel smugly superior for reading books like this.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

Has anyone else read it? I just finished it and it felt like a poorly written propaganda piece.

All I had to do to get to that conclusion was read the synopsis on the inner sleeve of the book. It just gives the entire plot away in a handful of sentences. Speaking of...

The confrontation occured in the middle of the night in the most ghetto part of the ghetto, shortly after a gang murdered someone at a party. Khalil wouldn't listen to instructions and spooked the officer. It wasn't a race thing, in my opinion-- it was a class thing. A cop in a neighborhood full of white crackheads and gangsters would likely act the same way this cop did in the black ghetto. The fact that Starr's policeman uncle said he used to be friends with him lends credence to the theory that the policeman wasn't abusing his power or being a racist, he had simply made a mistake due to fear.

And with that I now know every relevant plot point of this book, and it's just as biased as I suspected it would be. The blurb on the inner sleeve drew a lot of attention to this single event and made it the main character's pivotal utility within the story. In fact, the framing in the synopsis stages the cop encountering a black man on the sidewalk and instantly pulling out his sidearm to blow him away Judge Dredd style whislt foaming at the mouth with bloodshot eyes wide open in abject rage.

We turn around, and my breath catches. “Shit.”

There are two of them. They look thirteen, fourteen years old and are wearing green Celtics jerseys. Garden Disciples, no doubt. They cross the courts, coming straight for us.

The tallest one steps to Seven. “Nigga, you Kinging?”

I can’t even take this fool seriously. His voice squeaks. Daddy says there’s a trick to telling OGs from Young Gs, besides their age. OGs don’t start stuff, they finish it. Young Gs always start stuff.

“Nah, I’m neutral,” Seven says.

“Ain’t King your daddy?” the shorter one asks.

“Hell, no. He just messing with my momma.”

“It don’t even matter.” The tall one flicks out a pocket knife. “Hand your shit over. Sneakers, phones, everything.”

Rule of the Garden—if it doesn’t involve you, it doesn’t have shit to do with you. Period. The King Lords in the Escalade see everything going down. Since we don’t claim their set, we don’t exist.

But the boy on the merry-go-round runs over and pushes the GDs back. He lifts up his shirt, flashing his piece. “We got a problem?”

Good to know Angie's writing style is as low rent as the ghetto it describes. Any more choice examples?

That isn’t surprising at all that middle schools would be assigning essays based on this movie. Nowadays, there’s always some part of English class that discusses racism to some extent and it usually involves watching a movie or reading a book about the subject. That said, there are much better books out there that discuss racism in a more nuanced and less heavy-handed way than The Hate U Give does. Based on the description of the book, it doesn’t seem worth it to read.

Anything by Mark Twain, uncensored, would be a better pick. Tell me, did anybody propose censoring "nigger" from The Hate U Give?

 

[Dolphin Lundgren]

If I want a preachy schoolbook or movie about racism I'll take To Kill A Mockingbird.

 

[Y2K Baby]

Bookstores have plenty of shit like this floating around, it's a shame it gets put on aisle endcaps and displayed on tables. What you describe sounds exactly what I'd expect. I hope in the future literature like this gets labeled as biased propaganda. I haven't read it, and wouldn't want to, but I do wonder if there's any dirt on the author.

On another note, I read a book in school that has themes of racism. The book is called The Tortilla Curtain and was a legitimately good book with compelling storytelling; the audiobook read by the author is great. It actually has perspectives from both whites and mexicans, both go through terrible events, and it ends on a note of mutual recognized humanity.

Thematic clap nuance clap is clap justifying clap racism clap

 

[Some JERK]

Eh, I'd much rather people acknowledge their racist 'Kill Whitey!' fantasies as fiction than trying to pass them off as something that actually happened.

 

[Poiseon]

Can't people just read good books that tackle themes of racism and due process like To Kill a Mockingbird, for example?

They made a movie based off the book you linked here, saw it the other day. It was blatantly one sided, and an obvious attempt at manipulation, but the acting was fine, for the most part.

Read the classics kids. read the classics.

 

[omori]

Had a class on childrens literature with a group assignment that involved reading a book written in the last ten years and a group picked this. One of the members straight up called it antiauthoritarian propaganda during their presentation.

 

[vladimirovanova]

I can understand the reasoning behind it but it's done in the worst possible way. It doesn't even try to excuse their behavior as part of institutional issues. Just straight up "Dindu nuffin".
Like I get it. American cops are triggerhappy motherfuckers. Why not show us a case where a black kid who is a model citizen or entirely innocent in whatever is going on is still facially wrecked and locked up?
Anyone remember when a cop straight up killed a little black girl while she was sleeping? I want to read that kind of story. But the media can't have that.

 

[💗Freddie Freaker💗]

I liked how in the middle of the book the author tried to justify Khalil's drug dealing by saying he did it to help his family when at the beginning of the book she said that he had been using the money to buy new clothes and diamond earrings for himself.

“Khalil’s mom is a drug addict,” I tell Mrs. Carey. “Anybody who knew him knew how much that bothered him and how much he hated drugs. He only sold them to help her out of a situation with the biggest drug dealer and gang leader in the neighborhood.”

Ms. Ofrah noticeably sighs. My parents have wide eyes.

It’s dry snitching, but it’s snitching. Anybody who knows anything about Garden Heights will know exactly who I’m talking about. Hell, if they watch Mr. Lewis’s interview they can figure it out.

But hey, since King wants to go around the neighborhood lying and saying Khalil repped his set, I can let the world know Khalil was forced to sell drugs for him. “His mom’s life was in danger,” I say. “That’s the only reason he’d ever do something like that. And he wasn’t a gang member—”

“He wasn’t?”

“No, ma’am. He never wanted to fall into that type of life. But I guess—” I think about DeVante for some reason. “I don’t understand how everyone can make it seem like it’s okay he got killed if he was a drug dealer and a gangbanger.”

His dimples disappear. He wipes his nose like he always does before a lie. “I been busy.”

Obviously. The brand-new Jordans, the crisp white tee, the diamonds in his ears. When you grow up in Garden Heights, you know what “busy” really means.

Fuck. I wish he wasn’t that kinda busy though. I don’t know if I wanna tear up or smack him.

Can't people just read good books that tackle themes of racism and due process like To Kill a Mockingbird, for example?

They made a movie based off the book you linked here, saw it the other day. It was blatantly one sided, and an obvious attempt at manipulation, but the acting was fine, for the most part.

Read the classics kids. read the classics.

Some schools are actually replacing to kill a mocking bird with this book lol.

r/books - My school is thinking of replacing To Kill a Mockingbird with The Hate U Give,what

7 votes and 61 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

 

[Y2K Baby]

I liked how in the middle of the book the author tried to justify Khalil's drug dealing by saying he did it to help his family when at the beginning of the book she said that he had been using the money to buy new clothes and diamond earrings for himself.





Some schools are actually replacing to kill a mocking bird with this book lol.

r/books - My school is thinking of replacing To Kill a Mockingbird with The Hate U Give,what

7 votes and 61 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

"Give kids books that they're likely to read. It develops skill and excitement. Then come back with harder books when they've already built up the desire."

This argument always makes me ree.

 

[queue-anon]

To Kill a Mockingbird has the white savior trope, which is why I'm sure it's being sidelined these days. TKaM isn't as good a book about race, or any other topic, as The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, although the latter was also written by a white woman, so I doubt that will be on any social justice reading lists either.

 

[Y2K Baby]

latter was also written by a white woman

Both of them were written by white women, you moronic parasite.

 

[Francis E. Dec Esc.]

I liked how in the middle of the book the author tried to justify Khalil's drug dealing by saying he did it to help his family when at the beginning of the book she said that he had been using the money to buy new clothes and diamond earrings for himself.





Some schools are actually replacing to kill a mocking bird with this book lol.

r/books - My school is thinking of replacing To Kill a Mockingbird with The Hate U Give,what

7 votes and 61 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

How else he gonna get his money?