Inequality Merges With Truth: Societies at Odds in 'The Hate U Give' Anonymous College

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas explores the depths of one sixteen year-old’s life and the struggles she faces daily as a black female who has grown up in an underprivileged neighborhood and developed her emotions, thoughts and feelings through time and tragedy. Starr Carter’s life is quickly turned upside down when she is faced with the trouble her father always warned her about—police violence. This young girl is lost and confused as she witnesses the tragic death of one of her best friends since she was only three years old as a result of systemic inequality, which slowly breaks down the fragile divide she has between the two lives she lives everyday—one in poor Garden Heights and the other at her prep school. The inequalities between the binary of blacks and whites in the two social communities that she is apart of are prominent and allow the readers to truly immerse themselves in the way that racism and permanent inequality feels.

The author brings close attention to the two clashing societies that Starr is a part of and the social injustices that occur as the individuals within the society interact as a whole unit. Class is an axis of stratification and can be explained through the inequalities regarding the wealthy and...