Summary
Starr goes to Maya's, where Maya and Hailey play a basketball video game. Hailey abruptly turns the game off and asks Starr what's wrong. When Starr deflects, Maya turns the television on, and the officer who killed Khalil is on the news. A friend of the officer's appears and says that the officer has not been able to leave his house because there has been so much backlash against what he did. "That poor family," Hailey says, which immediately offends Starr.
"He's only trying to do his job and protect himself," Hailey says, as Starr starts to leave. She asks Hailey why she stopped following her on Tumblr and Hailey gets defensive about being implied to be racist. She leaves, saying, "I don't know who the hell you are anymore, Starr. That's the real reason I unfollowed you." Starr sits down and receives a text from Chris that reads, "Are you sure I can't pick you up for prom?"
At a restaurant, Lisa looks at a black dress that Starr is going to wear to prom, but notices that Starr looks upset. Starr tells her that she got in a fight with Hailey and Lisa looks relieved, which makes Starr laugh and accuse her mother of never having liked Hailey. Lisa insists that she didn't dislike Hailey, but disapproved of how controlled by her Starr was, once wanting to dye her hair purple at Hailey's request.
When Lisa encourages Starr to forgive and move on, Starr asks her if that's what she did when Maverick got another woman pregnant with Seven. "Yeah, I did. It wasn't easy...I had to decide if my love for your dad was bigger than his mistakes," Lisa says. She tells Starr that if the good outweighs the bad with Hailey, then she should work on it, but if it's the other way around, she should let the friendship go.
Starr arrives at prom in sneakers, and notices that the other students are talking about her. Chris walks up to her and pulls her aside, confronting her about the fact that she was the witness at the time of Khalil's murder. "You told me you didn't know Khalil," Chris says, angry that she hid things from him, but she tells him that she didn't want to change her reputation at the school.
"Have you ever seen somebody die?" Starr asks him, and Chris says he hasn't. She tells him she's seen two people die, and that's why she goes to Williamson. "It's like I have to hide who I am, every single day," she says, before telling Chris that Khalil was her first crush and kiss, but that she didn't even know he was having a hard time. Chris tries to comfort her by telling her that he "doesn't see color," but Starr insists that if he doesn't see her blackness, he doesn't see her. He stays firm though, insisting that he does see her, and they hug. Seven knocks on the window to interrupt them, and they burst into laughter. "I'm sorry prom got ruined," Starr says, and Chris tells her that he doesn't care, but that he wants to get burgers and take her home so he can meet her father.
Chris, Starr, and Seven arrive at the Carter house in the limousine. On their way into the house, Seven quizzes Chris on his self-proclaimed "inner blackness," asking him about Thanksgiving pies and whether mac and cheese is a full meal. When Maverick opens the door, he thinks Chris is the chauffeur and tries to tip him, but Lisa swoops in and greets him with a hug.
Maverick is surprised not only that Starr has a boyfriend, but that he is white. Lisa hints that Chris should go home and he takes his leave. When Chris is gone, Maverick confronts his family about their knowledge of Chris. He makes fun of Chris' name and gets upset that Starr isn't with someone who looks like him. "I guess I didn't set a good example of a black man for you," Maverick says, to which Starr responds, "No, you set a good example of what a man should be."
He smiles at her and they hug, when suddenly someone shoots at the family through the window. Maverick grabs his gun and runs out the front door, but the car drives away.
Maverick drives the family to Carlos' house in a nice neighborhood. While everyone gets out, Maverick stays in the car and insists he's going to go back to the neighborhood to fight back. Seven gets in the back of the car, which throws Lisa into a panic, but Maverick drives away and waits for King on the front porch with Seven.
At Carlos' house, Carlos asks Starr if she's scared about testifying before the grand jury the next day. "Why do we need a grand jury to decide if this goes to trial?" Starr asks, and Carlos tells her that not everyone sees the incident as a crime. He tells her that a lot goes through a cop's mind when he pulls someone over, and that a cop often is on his guard, especially if a suspect is talking back, or if there's a girl in the car who might be in danger. He tells her that it is common for a cop to shoot someone if it seems like they have a gun. "You shoot because you think they have a gun?" Starr says skeptically, "You don't say 'put your hands up'?"
She then suggests that if he was in a white neighborhood, Carlos wouldn't automatically shoot a suspect. He agrees, and Carlos simply says, "We live in a complicated world," but Starr is upset and leaves the house.
The next day, Starr speaks to the grand jury. Before she goes out there, April tells her she'll be there the whole time and that Starr can ask her anything during the testimony. Starr goes into the courtroom where a small jury is waiting. She has a vision of Khalil sitting among the jurors.
The scene shifts to Starr returning to school. Hailey approaches her and asks when she is going to get over it. Starr gets angry and tells Hailey she doesn't even realize she's being racist, as Hailey defends the cop who killed Khalil. Starr pulls a hairbrush out of Hailey's bag and asks her if it looks like a gun, before raising it and pretending she's going to shoot her with it. "That's what it's like," Starr says, throwing the hairbrush on the ground and walking away.
Analysis
While Starr continues to have a loving and supportive relationship with her family, she feels incredibly alone among her peers, particularly the white students with whom she goes to school. When she is over at Maya's house and watching news coverage of the shooting, Hailey sympathizes with the officer, which predictably upsets Starr. This leads Starr to express all the ways she feels mistrustful of her friend, and the viewer sympathizes with how isolating the experience must be to have to deal with the blithe ignorance of her friends in addition to everything else she's going through.
The film looks at the ways that Starr's social alienation is part of her position at her school, but it also looks at the ways that she isolates herself by assuming that she will be rejected by her peers. Starr doesn't tell her friends about what's going on with her, protecting herself with silence, without inviting them in to understand what her experience is. In some ways this is smart, as it protects her from some casual racism, such as the racism that she experiences in Hailey. But Lisa urges Starr to measure for herself which of her relationships are important and act accordingly, rather than simply being passive and accepting the dynamics created by others.
It takes Chris recognizing Starr on the news for her to admit that she knows Khalil and is involved with his case. In the course of their conversation at the prom, they both surprise one another. Starr surprises Chris by explaining why the contrast between her home life and school life is so painful, and he is sobered to her what she has been through. He surprises her by accepting her and insisting on being a part of her life even through the difficulty of their differing experience. He wants to take her home to meet Maverick, and she cannot help but let him.
At every corner, a new complication arises. After Chris brings Starr home, he is met with a rather chilly welcome from Maverick, who did not know Starr was dating a white boy. Maverick is not only awkward, but completely disapproving, confronting his family about Chris with an unexpected sternness. It comes out in the subsequent discussion that he's miffed Starr isn't with a black man because he thinks it means he didn't set a good enough example. She denies this and insists that on the contrary, he set a good example of what a man should be, which is how she chose her boyfriend.
The film raises many tense and dramatic questions about race and racial difference, and then suggests that these differences can be bridged. Even though Starr struggles to integrate the two sides of her life—school and home—she finds ways. After Chris suggests that he doesn't "see color," a proclamation that unnerves and upsets Starr because she feels like her identity is erased by it, she quickly forgives him and accepts his statement that he does see her. She even echoes his claims to color-blindness when talking to Maverick about Chris, telling her father that he set a good example of what a man is, an example that transcends race. The film seeks to show the divisions of the world as they are dictated by race, while also suggesting that there is a shared humanity that extends across racial borders. Righteous anger coexists with forgiveness and an earnest belief in the goodness of humanity in The Hate U Give.
