As a final project for HDFS 4330-Diversity in Human Development, I collaborated with fellow classmates to analyze the book "The Hate U Give". We developed a creative portion and written essay that allowed us to educate ourselves on diversity, learn teamwork skills and practice beginner graphic design.

1. RUNNING HEAD: HDFS 4330 Capstone Project 1
Capstone Project: The Hate U Give
Delaney Smith, Grace Goodson, Maddie Parris, Sydney McEntire, Taylor Sanderlin
The University of Georgia

2. HDFS 4330 Capstone Project 2
Creative Component

3. HDFS 4330 Capstone Project 3
Introduction to our Project
The Hate U Give explores topics that most authors shy away from. Our protagonist faces
many struggles including finding her identity, standing up for justice, the loss of friends, racism,
and death (Thomas, 2017). When starting our project, we wanted to highlight the themes of the
novel that impacted us the most: code switching, white privilege, and the oppression that Starr
faces. The way that Starr overcomes the obstacles in her life and continues to fight for what is
right inspired us, and we hope our creative project conveys this.
For the visual portion of this project we wanted to find a unique way to show Starr’s code
switching throughout the book. Music is an integral part of the novel, so we decided that an
album cover would be an interesting way to portray both sides of Starr and the struggles she
faces. We added “songs,” or impactful quotes from the novel to the back of the album. Code
switching for Starr is like living a double life: she is one person with two different sides. We
wanted to bring her two different lives together on the cover of this album and portray themes of
the novel that inspired or educated us like white privilege and the different forms of oppression
Starr faces. The main focus of this cover is the hand drawn picture of Starr’s Garden Heights side
next to her Williamson Prep side. Even though Starr is one person, we wanted to visualize her
feelings of being two different people. The dividing line down the middle is a representation of
the division she feels in the book. On each half, we included icons to further represent code
switching and other themes in the novel such as white privilege and the matrix of oppression that
Starr faces.
Code Switching
Throughout this novel Starr shows her ability to code-switch as she goes between the two
completely different environments of Garden Heights and Williamson Prep. Code-switching is

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the “process of shifting from linguistic code to another, depending on the social context or
conversational setting” (Morrison, 2017). When Starr is at her high school, Williamson Prep, she
speaks a different way and uses a different dialect: “My voice is changing already. It always
happens around “other” people, whether I’m at Williamson or not. I don’t talk like me or sound
like me” (Thomas, 2017, p. 95). Not only does Starr change the way she speaks when she is at
school, but she dresses differently and acts differently than she does when she is in her
neighborhood, Garden Heights. Starr even refers to herself as “Williamson Starr” whenever she
is at school and explains that:
Williamson Starr holds her tongue when people piss her off so nobody will think she’s
the angry black girl. WIlliamson Starr is approachable. No stank-eyes, side-eyes, none of
that. Williamson Starr is non confrontational. Basically, Williamson Starr doesn’t give
anyone a reason to call her ghetto (Thomas, 2017, p. 71).
By growing up in two separate worlds, Starr has learned that code-switching allows her
to better fit in with the different communities of her highschool and her neighborhood. However,
having to be two separate people was hard for Starr and began to affect her relationships. She
explains that “being two different people is so exhausting,” and felt that she could not even be
her real self when she was around her boyfriend (Thomas, 2017, p. 301). Allowing Chris to see
who she truly was was hard for Starr because he went to her highschool where she pretended to
be someone else. As Starr starts to stand up for what she believes in, her two lives begin to come
together. Near the end of the novel, we see Starr begin to show her true self to her friends and
boyfriend at Williamson Prep.

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White Privilege
The Hate U Give provided an eye-opening portrayal of the concept of white privilege in
society. White privilege can be defined as the inherent advantages possessed by a white person
on the basis of their race (Collins, 2018). As we learned in class readings, it is important to note
that white privilege doesn’t mean that white people cannot face challenges in life or do not work
hard to get what they’ve achieved; it means that the challenges they’ve faced are not related to
the color of their skin (Adams et al., 2013). The book showed us race-based challenges that
people of color experienced in addition to typical life problems. An example was Khalil, an
African American boy, getting shot and killed due to a hairbrush being mistaken for a gun
(Thomas, 2017, p. 23). This depicts a common misconception that African Americans are violent
or dangerous. Khalil was shot based on a misconception of his race rather than an actual criminal
act which is not a worry many white people struggle with. We also see the privileged lives of
students at Williamson Prep. In just one example, they stage a protest simply to get out of class
instead of actually distressing over the murder of Khalil. These students live in nice
neighborhoods and can afford nice schools like Williamson Prep leading to a cumulative
advantage over people of color. The plaid skirt and money symbol represent the ways that white
privilege is explored in the novel.
Our group came to a realization about white privilege in our own community and
individual lives after reading this book. One turning point for us was learning that Starr had two
important talks when she was a kid. One talk was about the ‘birds and the bees’ and the other
talk was about how to act if she was stopped by the police (Thomas, 2017, p. 20). We
collectively stated that not one of our members had talked about the second topic with our
parents. It was shocking that African American parents and young children have to carry that

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burden around with them daily. It showed us the reality of white privilege since we all
experience the inherent advantage of not feeling in danger due to our skin color.
The Matrix of Oppression
The Matrix of Oppression is a way to examine oppression in all of its faces. In class, we
learned that the Matrix of Oppression includes three domains: consciousness or unconsciousness
of the oppression, societal level that the oppression is taking place, and attitude or behavior
surrounding the oppression (Landers-Potts, 2020). Societal level indicates the area of society that
the oppression is taking place in--Individual, Institutional, or Social/Cultural--which can also be
represented on the Bronfenbrenner Model as Microsystem, Mesosystem, and Macrosystem
respectively (Landers-Potts, 2020). In The Hate U Give, Starr grapples with oppression from all
angles.
Starr’s biggest struggle with individual oppression in the book is that her friend Hailey is
racist. Hailey makes racist jokes in front of Starr, and says: “You can say something racist and
not be a racist” (Thomas, 2017, p. 112). Hailey also insinuates that Khalil deserved to die, which
upsets Starr: “He was a drug dealer and a gangbanger, somebody was going to kill him anyways”
(Thomas, 2017, p. 341). Individual oppression can be very painful because it often occurs face
to face to a person in their school or workplace. Hailey’s oppression is conscious and intentional
because she knows she is saying something racist. Eventually, Starr must confront Hailey and
remove her from her life. Individual oppression is shown in our project in the fried chicken icon
to represent Starr’s struggles with oppression in her microsystem.
Racism as institutional oppression stems from the historical legacy of slavery,
segregation, and jim crow laws (Landers-Potts, 2020). Institutional oppression includes policies
and practices in a society that oppress or create barriers for a certain group. These policies and

7. HDFS 4330 Capstone Project 7
practices often favor the “superior” group in the society. Many of the practices we maintain
today were created to maintain the “superiority” of a chosen group: white people.
The catalyst of action in The Hate U Give emerges from a form of institutional
oppression: police brutality. Starr’s friend is shot and murdered by a police officer even though
he posed no threat. After this, the cop continues to hold Starr at gunpoint while she cries over her
friend’s dead body. Starr is forced to experience institutionalized racism again and again when
she is repeatedly questioned. The detectives try to put words into Starr’s mouth and express
prejudice: “Now, do you know if Khalil sold narcotics?” (Thomas, 2017, p. 102). Starr is also
forced to come face to face with the criminalization of the black community as the media
dissects her friend Khalil and her neighborhood Garden Heights. The icons portraying violence
and the angel wings representing Khalil and Natasha show institutional oppression in The Hate U
Give.
The Hate U Give also displays themes of cultural racism. Cultural racism is defined as
cultural images that affirm the assumed superiority of whites and assumed inferiority of people
of color (Landers-Potts, 2020). When the media picks up Khalil’s story, it immediately tries to
place the blame on Khalil. Stories of Khalil being a drug dealer and gang member with no
context are contrasted with One-Fifteen’s father describing his son as a dedicated protector of
society. These media stories prey on the cultural attitude that black people are criminals. So often
in America victims of color are turned into criminals as if making mistakes warrants a death
sentence. Starr points out the problem with this so clearly: selling drugs doesn’t mean that Khalil
deserved to die.
Connection to Course Content
Throughout The Hate U Give, there are several connections that can be made to the

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content we learned about in class. One of the main ideas that stood out is the barriers to critical
thinking that can be seen in many of the characters throughout the novel. A barrier of critical
thinking seen quite frequently is the “blue lies” which can be defined as ignorance and the failure
to admit lack of knowledge (Landers-Potts, 2020). One of the primary characters who struggles
with this is Hailey Grant, one of Starr’s oldest friends at Williamson. This type of barrier can be
seen when she denies her comment about fried chicken as being racist and tries to justify it as
being a joke. It can also be seen when she dismisses Khalil as a drug dealer and thug, once again
failing to admit her racist comments or lack of knowledge.
Another barrier of critical thinking that can be seen throughout the novel is perceptual
bias. This is when one sees only what they want to see or what they have been accustomed to
see. This can be seen in One-Fifteen himself when he “mistakes” a hairbrush for a gun and
murders Khalil due to his perpetual bias of black people being dangerous. Alongside this,
another barrier that can be seen in the general public and other white characters is trusting
testimonial evidence when no evidence exists to support the statements made. Trusting
testimonial evidence can be seen when the media makes the claims about Khalil and many
people, like Hailey, believe the statements without any physical proof.
Conclusions
The Hate U Give offers a jolting representation of many real-life themes we discussed in
class including code-switching, white privilege and the matrix of oppression. Right now, our
society is in a positive feedback loop--hostile views of the colored, poor, and weak create
policies that end up increasing these damaging views. The good news is, we can take a page out
of Starr’s book and speak up. The Hate U Give has empowered our group to learn the importance
of recognizing our privilege and educating ourselves about racial discrimination in order to

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improve our broken society. If we start to change the cultural attitudes in our society, we will
see policy change that can continue to push us in a positive direction.

10. HDFS 4330 Capstone Project 10
References
Adams, M, Blumenfeld, W.J., Castaneda, C., Hackman, H.W., Peters, M.L., and Zuniga,
X. (Eds.) (2013). Readings for Diversity and Social Justice (3rd ed.). New York, NY, US:
Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
Collins, C. (2018). What Is White Privilege, Really? Teaching Tolerance.
https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/fall-2018/what-is-white-privilege-really.
Landers-Potts, M (2020) Racism, Race & Inequality. [PowerPoint Slides].
Morrison, C. D. (2017, May 30). Code-switching. Retrieved December 13, 2020, from
https://www.britannica.com/topic/code-switching
Thomas, A. (2017). The hate U give. HarperCollins.