thug life. the hate u give little infants f***s everyone. do you see it woven and weaving throughout our society? it persists whether you do or not, but I hope you see it. I finished the hate u give by angie thomas in three days. i’m a full-time college student, with two jobs, extra-curriculars, and a social life, and I finished this book in three. damn. days. to say I feel proud is an understatement; the hate u give had me bawling within the first forty pages, and then every other page. the education this book has not only for society but specifically in regards to the people who deal with the inequalities of the justice system, and so much more, gives the reader something to relate to, something to understand, and something to learn.
when the story first came out I knew I wanted to read it before watching the movie but I had zero time (kudos to my “to be read” pile). I had honestly forgotten about both the book and the movie until the movie’s release date in october of 2018. fall 2018, I did my pre-student teaching during my sophomore year of college and in my classroom of high school freshman, the lesson during the months of october and november happened to be to kill a mockingbird. the students had little to no interest in the this particular novel, I think this had to do with the fact that in a classroom composed of mostly african-american students, none of our students wanted two white teachers teaching the novel. in addition to this, the fact that a white novelist telling a story through the eyes of a white child about the struggles of african-americans just doesn’t make sense.. so we understood the student’s frustration.
the evolution of our student’s interest in to kill a mockingbird, however, did make sense. they needed something stronger to relate to, something prevalent in their own lives and understandings of the wrongdoings against african-americans in american society. something they related to happened to be the unequal justice between black and white people, as well as the police brutality that has become more mainstream in the media. living in the inner-city of milwaukee, wisconsin, one of the most segregated cities in the nation, I see the effects of red-lining, the continuous segregation amongst neighborhoods and the segregation within the school system. these students were not immune to the injustices, and related this segregation to the lives of starr, kenya, khalil, compared to starr’s uncle, chris, maya, and hailey. starr’s parents place her and her siblings in an expensive, private school to receive an education to provide them with better opportunities than the school in the neighborhood starr has grown up in. the students in my class were also placed in a school with a similar goal, although the school I worked in was public, it required the student’s to be accepted into it (no, it was not a charter school either). my students recognized that they were able to attend this school for “gifted students” whose grades were more advanced than other’s in their district, but their neighbors were forced to attend a school that didn’t provide enough academic and emotional support that’s necessary for many inner-city kids.
I think the difficulty in trying to educate children on hard topics falls somewhere between what curriculum worked when we learned it and how we can teach it even better, in a way that will allow the students to engage more. I love critical thinking, and I love sharing my love for reading, history, and the study of society with people, so incorporating the past with the present and applying it to the future, should always lead to a success within education. As I begin shaping lesson plans for my future classrooms I do believe comparing and contrasting to kill a mocking bird and the hate u give would give kids a perspective not necessarily taken full advantage of in our current education systems due to lack of knowledge, understanding, or even fear of the controversial topic at hand.
the hate u give illustrated how worlds collide, the effect segregation has on communities (socially and economically), and the damages inequality inflicts on children of all ages. starr finds herself locked out of two worlds who desperately view her as an outsider; in one, she’s the traitor who attends the white-school outside her own community, and in the other she’s the closed off minority in a school that loves black culture but doesn’t recognize the inequalities minorities face. we live in a society that turns a blind eye to the wrongdoings of people in fear of conflict. the hate u give exemplified the epidemic going on in the world around us, and if we simply (I say this with a heavy emphasis) view people as our peers and equals instead of on a ranking scale – this life we live wouldn’t be so chaotic.
out of all the recent books, this novel is a 10/10 read that aids the reader into the lives of those who suffer. please attempt to read this if you feel uncomfortable with the tensions between races, things don’t get better if we don’t try.
love, lee
*side note: I read this in February but i’m just now publishing it – shoutout to college for consuming my time 🙂
Happee Lee 