'The Hate U Give': A Critique of Modern Day American Society Amy Jenkinson 12th Grade

The United States of America has progressed so far in terms of equal rights for all of its citizens that when one looks back at the USA of the past, a country that widely exercised the use of slavery, modern day America is unrecognisable in contrast. However, even with such great strides being taken to create an equal society, equality is still a topic that is highly debated. The America that civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr dreamed of, an America in which black people would not be judged on the color of their skin, is not the America that is presented to the reader in Angie Thomas’s ‘The Hate U Give’. ‘The Hate U Give’ focuses on the inequality faced by black Americans in the 21st century and the vicious cycle of poverty and crime in much less fortunate communities. Angie Thomas uses the novel to critique this society through her presentation of police brutality and racism.

It is within the second chapter that one of the most significant moments in the novel occurs, in which Khalil, a young black man and friend the black sixteen-year-old protagonist, Starr, is shot by officer One-Fifteen even though he is unarmed and has done nothing to indicate to the officer that he is a threat. Khalil’s death is described in...