The Hate You Give – Have you seen it?
The first time I saw the movie, I laughed and cried and laughed more. I remember the evening well.
Bright lights flickered and faded to grey and then darkness.
I scooched back into my snuggly, red plush seat, and the projector revealed a figure on the screen. I looked right, barely able to make out the face of my girlfriend sitting only inches away. The pitch black of the theater invited me to focus on one image — the man about to speak to me, large and looming, straight ahead.
That evening, the darkness of the theater held a special kind of superpower. It created an intimacy between myself and the man who had just introduced himself as George Tillman, Jr — the incredibly gifted and bold director of The Hate You Give.
His deep voice spoke. With conviction, Tillman looked into the camera, his eyes seemingly focused on the millions of us sitting in the theater. He introduced this story of Starr, an African-American teenager whose name was gifted her by her father, that she might be a bright light for truth.
The book was written by Angie Thomas. But the story is also being written out in our lives today. How will teenagers, especially young women, respond in conversations about racism? Will young women be receptive to hearing and seeing the social ramifications created by hundreds of years of white-impelled shame on people of color?
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