Reading The Hate U Give made me realize the very few times that I have actually thought about being white.  Until coming to college and talking about what it means to be white in a class with Dr. Tucker (African American Literature), I can’t think of a single time before when I have thought about being white. I believe this was when I started to truly understand white privilege.  When Starr talks about having to be two different people, and how exhausting that is, I tried to imagine what it would feel like to literally and physically feel as if you are two people living in the same body, having to constantly be on guard with what you say, and how you react to things.

Being a teenager is difficult enough, but Starr also feels forced to conceal fundamental parts of who she is. She feels forced to act a certain way in front of her friends at Williamson (literally from fear of what will happen if they see the “Garden Heights Starr”). Identity is integral to the text.  I started to think about my own identity while reading, and what it would mean to live a double life.  While writing this, I am still thinking about my own search for identity growing up – figuring out my likes and dislikes, who I was apart from my parents.  The difference between Starr and myself is that I was and still am not forced to see myself through two lenses.  There is a quote in the novel by Starr that really resonated with me:

That’s the problem. We let people say stuff, and they say it so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us. What’s the point of having a voice if you’re gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn’t be?

As I read this passage, I understood that Starr was talking about speaking out on behalf of her own race and standing up for her own identity, but I also felt that she was making a call to people who are not ‘other’ to speak out for minorities and for the marginalized of society.