Key themes
- Police violence and the Black community's relationship to law enforcement
- Speaking up — the cost of bearing witness and the cost of silence
- Identity between worlds: the code-switching self
About this book
A teenager witnesses a police shooting and finds her voice; urgent, powerful and humane.
Published in 2017, The Hate U Give was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and the killings of Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin and others. It spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list and was adapted into a film.
Discussion questions
- Starr witnesses the killing of her friend Khalil and must decide whether to speak publicly as a witness. How does Thomas show the personal and community stakes of this decision?
- Starr moves between her neighbourhood and her mostly white school. How does Thomas show what code-switching costs — and what Starr must suppress of herself in each world?
- Garden Heights has its own internal problems — gangs, drugs, violence. How does Thomas hold these alongside the critique of police violence without using one to excuse the other?
- The title comes from Tupac's THUG LIFE acronym. How does Thomas use hip-hop as both cultural context and political argument?
- The Hate U Give is a YA novel but has been widely assigned in schools and university courses. What does it offer as a literary and political text beyond its genre?
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