"Division is how they win. Unity is how they crumble."
On the day of Khalil's funeral, an activist, April Ofrah, visits his congregation and urges them to speak up and fight back against the unjust powers that be. She talks about the fact that authorities thrive on dividing the black community so that they can control black Americans more easily. In her estimation, if they unite and work together, they can create a better future for themselves. Unity is their path to victory.
"Know your rights. Know your worth."
Maverick says this to his kids after giving them the list of rights from the Black Panthers. He is a man that is determined to ensure his children know their worth and how to operate in a system that continues to oppress black Americans. This is a testament to how much Maverick believes in raising kids who love and value themselves.
"Daddy says our life is here 'cause our people are here."
Starr is describing Garden Heights, where she has lived her whole life. It's their neighborhood and will remain theirs because they love the people in the community. While it would be safer to move to another neighborhood, and they have an opportunity to do so if they want to, Starr tells us that Maverick is the driving force behind their staying put.
"Mama and Daddy had me when they were seventeen. My nana even threw Mama out the house, said Daddy was no good, just a pusher for the King Lords gang. She swore raising the dead was more likely than Mama and Daddy making it. They stay proving her and everybody else wrong. And in large part, that means making sure that we don’t make the same mistakes."
This is another line from Starr's narration, early on in the film. She describes the way her parents fell in love, the fact that they were very young, and how her mother Lisa's family disapproved. In spite of the haphazard way they came together, Maverick and Lisa are a happy couple, still very much in love, but also vigilant about making sure their children "don't make the same mistakes."
"Slang makes them cool. Slang makes me hood."
In narration, Starr talks about the double life she leads going to Williamson. She talks about the fact that, while it's cool for her white classmates to use black vernacular and slang, when she does it, it makes her seem black and it is not flattering. Here, she shows that there is a double standard in the white community of which she is part.
"Meaning what society gives to us when we little, comes back to bite them in the ass when we grow up and we wild out. You get that?"
In his car, Khalil explains to Starr the meaning of Tupac's anagram for "THUG LIFE: The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody." He explains that the hate that society shows to black children makes them more susceptible to their own hate, and that that hate creates more problems and affects society when those children grow up.
"They’re acting like Khalil was murdered just so that they can skip a chem test, and I didn’t do anything about it. Mama, I need to speak for him."
Starr says this to Lisa after her classmates stage a protest about Khalil's death at her school. She is frustrated with the way that a real tragedy is so abstract for her white peers that it becomes more of an excuse than a cause, and this is what inspires her to step up and speak as the witness to Khalil's murder.
"Chris, I don’t live at Williamson. If I had told everybody, I would’ve been “poor Starr” who saw her friend get killed. Or “Starr the charity case” who lives in the ghetto."
At their prom, sitting in the limousine, Starr tells Chris why she hasn't told her classmates that she was the one who saw Khalil die. She explains that she didn't want to get aligned with the tragedy in a way that changed her reputation at the prep school, and that the label of being the girl who saw her friend murdered would only further alienate her from her classmates.
"My name is Starr! And I’m the one who saw what happened to Khalil! I am the witness! But so are you all! We are all witnesses to this injustice! We see it all, and we will not stop until the world sees it too! We will not stop protesting!"
At the protest that occurs after the officer who killed Khalil does not get indicted, April hands Starr a megaphone and Starr climbs onto a car, saying this. After all she has been through, she is filled with a clarity of purpose that allows her to speak to the crowds and motivate them to fight back against injustice. This is a moment when we see Starr own the power of her own voice.
"We live in a complicated world, Starr."
Starr's uncle, Carlos, tries to explain that the situation between the black community and the police is more complicated than she knows. He is a black cop and he sympathizes with her plight, but he also has major blind spots, which prevent him from seeing that the issue of police brutality and the shooting of an innocent black boy is, in the end, a straightforward injustice.
