Hairbrush (Dramatic Irony)
The incident of Khalil's death is a moment of dramatic irony. Khalil picks up a hairbrush off the front seat of his car and we can see clearly that it is not a weapon, but the cop mistakes it for a gun and shoots Khalil three times. The moment is tragic and reveals the racist assumptions of the cop. He assumes that Khalil has a weapon, even though Khalil does not.
Starr at Williamson (Dramatic Irony)
While we know that Starr was in the car on the night that Khalil was killed, none of her classmates at Williamson know, because she is afraid that if she tells them, she will get stereotyped as a poor black girl from "the ghetto." Even her best friends and her boyfriend have no idea that Starr was intimately acquainted with Khalil. This dramatic irony creates tension in her relationships, as she struggles to keep her two very different worlds separated.
The cop murdered Khalil (Dramatic Irony)
Another devastating instance of dramatic irony comes from the fact that the viewer knows that Khalil was murdered and had no intention of hurting the cop, even though the media is spinning it to make it look like Khalil was a dangerous drug dealer. We are privy to the fact that Khalil was a good, not a violent person, but the way that the story is treated by the white media tries to pin the blame on him. We see what happened that night, so we know that Khalil was innocent and wrongfully killed.
Chris is Starr's Boyfriend (Dramatic Irony)
When Chris goes to drop Starr off at home and meet Maverick, Maverick thinks that Chris is a chauffeur, and has no idea that he is his daughter's boyfriend. Thus, a rather comic and awkward dramatic irony arises, where we know that Starr and Chris are dating, but Maverick has no idea.
