It’s ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘yes, sir’ or ‘no, ma’am’ and ‘no, sir.’” Starr further observes that her family has dressed up so as to not look like “hood rats.” The Carters know they must speak, dress, and behave a certain way in a world that prioritizes white conceptions of respectability. When Lisa is talking to the District Attorney on the phone, for example, she “speaks in her ‘other voice.’” On the way to Starr’s network news interview, Lisa also gives her children specific instructions as to how to act: “When we get there, don’t touch anything and only speak when somebody speaks to you. Lisa and Maverick engage in this sort of code switching too. I can never, ever let anyone think I'm ghetto.” “I choose every word carefully and make sure I pronounce them well. “I don't talk like me or sound like me,” she says of the way she behaves beyond the boundaries of her neighborhood. She negotiates the boundary between “Williamson Starr” and Garden Heights Starr, not fully comfortable with either identity and frequently shifting her tone and vocabulary based on her audience. Black identity is split between the way black individuals perceive themselves and the way they know the white world will view them, creating a sense of internal conflict.įrom the time she steps into Big D’s party at the beginning of the novel, Starr makes it clear that she feels there are two “versions” of herself. Du Bois put forth this term in 1903 to describe the experience of being black in an American culture that has devalued blackness for its entire history. Du Bois’ famous notion of “double consciousness,” the sensation of “two-ness” experienced by black individuals seeing themselves through the eyes of a racist society. Thomas explores the tension felt by characters of color who must navigate the boundary between who they are and how the outside world portrays them. Starr feels pulled between two worlds throughout The Hate U Give-namely, that of the poor, primarily black Garden Heights and the affluent, primarily white Williamson Prep.
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