The Hate U Give
The Hate U Give Little Infants F’s Everybody is an impactful statement.; the movie was even more monumental. This movie, based off of an eye opening declaration made by Tupac Shakur, was a tiny microscopic look into the black experience. Director George Tillman Jr. really took his time to convey a part of the black experience to the world and this appears to be the start of a movement. It’s almost as though a light turned on and everybody realized black people can have their own movies about their own struggles that are not surrounded by cheesy spiritual anecdotes and life lessons that seem to only be learned by people of color in America; i.e. teen pregnancy, abusive marriages, households with absent fathers, etc.
So I know I’m a little late joining the party with this one but this movie really touched my heart and inspired me. When I heard about it being in production and saw the trailer for the first time I was on edge. Honestly, I didn’t think I would be able to sit and watch this movie because, unlike white people that may go to a nice matinee to see it and think this will help them understand black culture and rhetoric, this is our life. Being afraid for our black men, little black boys and little black girls is unfortunately the norm for “us”. Not an accepted norm, but a norm nonetheless.
I can relate to Starr. Not at that age and not growing up in a “hood” environment, but now being a black woman in an IT world saturated with white men; code switching is something that is a part of life for me. It’s a part of everyday life for black people; period. But on the biggest issue she had to deal with, being in the car with a black man and getting pulled over by the cops for “driving while black”. I didn’t suffer the same tragedy Starr did, thank God, but an experience like that is tragic nonetheless. To the man I witnessed and lived through that tragedy with, I’m glad God saw fit to keep you on this earth to fulfill your purpose.
The Hate U Give is a perfectly painted picture of the inequalities and the things I will have to teach my children to save their lives in the future. We are humans the same as the next, born innocent and pure, but unknowingly we are born with weapons strapped to our hands, faces, arms, legs, and backs. The color of our skin. The same things EVERY person is born with but because we have melanin we are a threat. The hate u give little infants f’s everybody and has created the world we live in, where inquiring blacks are granted kill shots and mass murdering whites are granted miranda rights then detained for questioning.
Overall I appreciate this movie, and impress upon anybody open to growth and change to go see. I challenge writers and directors to continue to push forward and move with a purpose on the ideas that black actors and actresses can star in movies about life; not surrounded around being black or white. Movies that anybody can relate to but typically don’t because all they see are white people on the screen with black actors in the background. We are all people and we all have to push through day by day. Let’s just make sure we don’t only focus on the added struggles we have to deal with as black people. Definitely a step up from the Spike Lee movies and Tyler Perry plays/movies I grew up on as a child. They paved the way for us to jump off the screen with innovative, record breaking storytelling. Let’s make them proud.
Release Date: October 19, 2018
Where I watched: Amazon Firestick