The Hate U Give

April Ofrah secures Starr an interview with a local news station. The whole family accompanies her to the station. There, a producer calls Starr brave, but she doesn’t feel like it. Her interviewer is Diane Carey, a local reporter Starr watched with her grandmother for years. After recording some B-roll footage of them walking around, Diane and Starr sit down. She asks Starr who Khalil was to her. Starr says that he was just a kid and explains why he started selling drugs. Even though she knows King will watch the segment, Starr tells Diane that Khalil sold drugs to pay back the biggest drug dealer in the neighborhood. She doesn’t name King, concluding that “it’s dry snitching, but it’s still snitching” (288).

Starr tells Diane that the media portrayal of Khalil annoys her, because it’s as if news reporters charged him with his own murder. She explains that he opened the car door to ask if she was ok when Officer 115 shot him. She also says that the officer pointed his gun at her, which no one but Carlos knew before.

She says while she isn’t afraid of the cops, she wishes that they wouldn’t make so many assumptions about Black people.