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The Hate U Give [Little Infants F*#ks Everyone] The Hate U Give follows the journey of Starr Carter, an African American 16 year old that lives in an inner city predominately Black neighborhood but attends a school in a more affluent White neighborhood. So… The Hate YOU Give unconsciously when the terms ‘Urban’, ‘Inner City’, ‘Ghetto’ are used, is all locked into unconscious bias I’m so interested in this, after doing the test myself and performing training to NHS managers on it, I am now convinced that this is the root to discrimination! Anyway, Starr’s parent’s choice to send her and her brother to that school but still live in a poorer neighborhood reflects Starr's diverse experience. Russell Hornsby who plays Starr’s father does an amazing job at portraying a hardworking, loving father who has a past in drug dealing. Despite his past (and the biases that come with that) he quite literally will die for his children and, one of the first scenes is him schooling them on how to not get shot by police. Please see my review on ear for eye which has a similar theme. Regina Hall plays Starrs mother. She has been brought up very differently from her husband (Starr’s father) but this doesn’t affect the love they share for each other. Which I found both refreshing and unifiying. It is down to the education that she receives that she fought for her child to go to this particular school and as the film develops, unloading how problematic living in a poor neighborhood but attending a rich school can be, Starr’s mother is one of the many antagonists that wants the family to move. Characters ✮✮✮✮✮ I have taken away a star(r) because of one of the characters, Starr's boyfriend Chris. I really enjoyed how rounded and well developed most of the characters were, including Starr’s policeman uncle played by Common. Uncle Carlos (Starr's mother's brother) is a Black Police man and we hear his unique perspective when it comes to the shooting of same said Black males. I further enjoyed how Starr's education from both school and home also equipped her to call her uncle out on how racist his viewpoint is. [SPOILER SPOLIER SPOILER] Especially after Starr experiences the killing of her best friend by the police. This incident leads to Starr's self development and the killing of her alter ego that she created to survive both worlds. However, Starrs boyfriend Chris, whom she met at school, sticks out hugely. This is probably because all of the other characters were so developed and rounded, whereas Chris' character I found was one dimentsional. He was just a device, and served no other function to me other than to convince White audience members that Starr’s fight for Black lives shouldn’t be perceived as racist… because her boyfriend's White. This in itself is problematic, because regardless of who one dates, marries, has children with - Black lives and the treatment of Black people is a disgusting fact that very much needs to be addressed! Chris (the White boyfriend) had no opinion, no point of view, no internal struggle and I found his character annoying. What I loved this about this film though, is that it looked into the class clashes that exist within the Black community. It did a wonderful job at showing another type of mixed experience. An experience whereby your parents may be of the same race, the sme age, the same heritage even – but are of different social classes. Isn’t that something? And actually, I think is the root of division within the Black race - on both sides. Story Line ✮✮✮✮✮ Identity being a theme, Starrs diverse life and mixed upbringing causes her to develop an alter ego as mentioned before. This ego is the cause of disparity and we see a very truthful conversation between Starr and her best friend Hailey - who hold contrasting views on the shooting by police of Black people.  By now you should know that titles and images are important to me! The “Don’t judge a book by its cover” statement doesn’t address the fact that as humans that is all we do. We judge what we see – and it is so deeply rooted that we may even murder because of a preconceived bias notion that… for instance, Black skin means danger. Alert! Alert! Following my current loc journey – I’d like to expose judgments rather than pretend they do not exist. The Hate U Give title is an acronym from Tupac’s THUG LIFE (the full acronym which is also mentioned several times in the film, is The Hate U Give Little Infants F*#ks Everyone)which is pretty self explanatory. Title ✮✮✮✮✮ Once again see my Theatre review for ear for eye which also exposes how we are f*#king up the youth, and then blaming them. In The Hate U Give there is an iconic moment towards the end that teaches us all about the cycle of destruction. Read the book as well as seeing the film The Hate U Give. Comments are closed.
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