The Danger of a Single Story in The Hate U Give

In The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas there are many notable characters given throughout. Hailey, who is one of Starr Carter’s best friends at Williamson Prep, changes throughout the novel. Her and Starr started off as friends because they both experienced loss when they were very young, and they related to each other because of that fact. In the book, Hailey is shown as a protective friend to Starr, but when the tragic death of Starr’s childhood best friend hits the news, Hailey starts to show that she does in fact have racist tendencies. She shows that she is narrowminded and only sees one side of the story and is really only interested in herself. Her story is that she is a white, upper-class female who doesn’t show an empathetic side to those who aren’t as privileged as her.

Hailey starts out as one of the protagonists in the book, but as the book progresses, she starts showing her real colors to the main character. When Starr lost her other childhood best friend, Natasha, to a shoot out in Garden heights, Starr’s parents transferred her and her siblings to a private school 45 minutes away from where they live. Upon arrival Starr and Hailey bonded because as Starr stated, “We were those “crybaby” kids who bust out crying at the smallest shit. Me because of Natasha, and Hailey because she lost her mom to cancer. We rode the grief waves together” (Thomas 81). That was the beginning, but as they grew older Hailey and Starr grew apart because of their differences in race and where they came from. What really triggered the demise in their friendship was when Hailey unfollowed Starr on Tumblr because she posted a picture of a mutilated body of a young black boy who was murdered. Hailey wasn’t disgusted by what was done to the kid, rather she was grossed out by the fact that Starr decided to “reblog such an awful picture” (Thomas 80). Hailey isn’t a “woke” person, she would rather be oblivious to social issues, like the murder of Emmett Till, so she took her first step in the direction of one of the antagonists in the book by choosing to unfollow Starr.

Even though Hailey unfollowed Starr, they were still friends inside school, but when Hailey said, “Pretend the ball is some fried chicken. Bet you’ll stay on it then.” (Thomas, 113). Her saying this to Starr is reaffirming the stereotype which is prevalent in the USA that all black people love fried chicken. It is a microaggression that is uncalled for and it led to Starr getting angry at her and implying that she was racist for saying it out of the blue. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie states, “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete”. This statement applies to Hailey in this instance, and her flat out saying a racist comment, which she later denies as being racist, causes even more rift between the friends. Stereotyping is an easy way to act like one sees more than one story, but they are also easily offensive to those who are getting stereotyped. Stereotypes aren’t representative of a community, rather it is a way to keep those who are marginalized down.

Another instance from Adichie’s Ted Talk that applies to Hailey is when she speaks on the issue of how media influenced the way she saw Mexican’s. Media influenced how Hailey saw Khalil and how she empathized more with the police officer that shot him. Hailey saw Khalil as a drug dealer from a bad neighborhood because that is how the media was portraying him. She flat out took the police officers side even though he murdered someone. Later, in the book she stated “Yes, get over it. He was probably going to end up dead anyway” (Thomas 337). She heard that Khalil was dealing drugs, and had no empathy for him dying, she didn’t try to see his side. She didn’t consider why Khalil was dealing and she didn’t even consider how his family was taking his death, she only considered how the white police officer’s family was affected. Her single story was her rich white upbringing and it influenced her point of view on the murder of a young black man from the wrong side of the tracks.

As the story goes on, Starr is getting more comfortable standing up for herself and Hailey struggles to see why Starr is so mad at her. She doesn’t think she did or said anything wrong when it pertains to the touchy subject of Khalil’s murder. She flat out refuses on multiple occasions to apologize for the hurtful things she has said. She can not see through the eyes of others, even when her friendships are on the line. Scott Russell Sanders states “stories help us see through the eyes of other people”. Hailey unfortunately doesn’t want to listen to other stories. Stories are important, especially when it involves cases of oppression. As someone with white privilege, Hailey should be using that privilege in a more positive way, but she is choosing the route of ignorance. For Starr, after going through what she saw, Hailey’s ignorance is the last thing she needs. If Hailey had tried to look through Starr’s eyes, she could have salvaged her friendship.

Hailey seems to be the popular girl; besides the death of her mom, she has everything and with Hailey saying snide comments “Starr feels judged and out of place in school, she’s navigating a friendship with a “mean girl” … She’s wary, too, of sharing her role in the investigation at school because she doesn’t trust one of her closest friends to be sympathetic to her situation” (Diamond). Hailey has never had to deal with seeing one of her friends getting shot in front of her, so it is hard for her to put herself into Starr’s shoes because she can’t relate to the social pressures of being a woman of color who lives in a bad neighborhood, nor has she witnessed so much violence. However, she doesn’t listen to Starr’s story and she doesn’t try to understand what her friend is going through.

Being friends with one of the few black kids at Williamson Prep doesn’t exclude Hailey from being racist, in fact, Hailey is subject to the danger of a single story throughout the book, as well as it is very hard for her to see through other’s eyes. She comes off as a good friend to Starr in the beginning, but dramatically changes when tragedy strikes. Her single story is one of privilege, she doesn’t have to worry about the problems seen in those who aren’t as fortunate as she is. She is easily influenced by stereotypes that are prevalent in our society and by what the media says. It is hard for her to accept when she is in the wrong, and even harder for her to show empathy for those who are not of her race and class.

Bibliography

1. Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. “The Danger of a Single Story.” TED, 10 Mar. 2014, https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/up-next.
2. Diamond, Anna. “'The Hate U Give' Enters the Ranks of Great YA Novels.” The Atlantic,
3. Atlantic Media Company, 29 Mar. 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/03/the-hate-u-give-angie-thomas-review/521079/.
4. Sanders, Scott Russell. “The Most Human Art: Uses of Story.” Utne, 1997, https://www.utne.com/arts/ten-uses-of-storytelling-how-to-be-human.
5. Thomas, Angie. The Hate U Give. Walker Books, 2018.