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Funny how it works with white kids though. It’s dope to be black until it’s hard to be black.
Some days, we are at the bottom in Garden Heights, but we still share the feeling that damn, it could be worse.
“Listen! The Hate U—the letter U—Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody. T-H-U-G L-I-F-E. Meaning what society give us as youth, it bites them in the ass when we wild out. Get it?” “Damn. Yeah.”
people like us in situations like this become hashtags, but they rarely get justice.
I suddenly remember how different I am from most of the kids here. Nobody would have to drag me or my brothers to the Bahamas—we’d swim there if we could. For us, a family vacation is staying at a local hotel with a swimming pool for a weekend.
whoop here it is, my first major complaint. i have nothing against the black-white juxtaposition and i think we need it in ya, but i am, not to sound repetitive, a hundred percent against painting everything black and white. of course, the people like these characters here exist, but if you want to address a major problem, you should work with a common case. the stereotypes crushed all together in one poor black girl will not look good. up until this point i quite liked Starr, but her deliberately hanging out with rich kids and then complaining about it just does not fly with me. it was her concsious decision, and i will not sypmathise with this kind of poor decision-making.
Tumblr is supposed to be sacred ground where our friendship is cemented.
“That douche,” Hailey says, reminding me why we’re friends—she doesn’t need details.
You know what? I’ll Beyoncé him. Not as powerful as a nineties R&B breakup song, but stronger than a Taylor Swift. Yeah. That’ll work. I tell Hailey and Maya, “I’ll handle him.”
i literally do Not speak this language
I went off on Chris. He knew I wasn’t ready for that, we already talked about it, and yet he had a condom?
hold Up for a sec. either i'm getting half the story here, or this girl is nuts. he asked for your consent? he actually thought about protection? he did not force you to do anything? i'm confused. how is the boy wrong here?
Sophomore year he followed my Tumblr, and I followed him back.
once again tumblr is the absolute last place on this goddamned earth to follow your partner especially if youre in high school, i cant believe
Chris leans down, his face in front of mine. My tears blur him. “Starr?”
ok, so im not dismissing starr's trauma, because it's perfectly valid and horrible, and it's fucked up and she needs professional help. im only saying that if this shit boils down to miscommunication and starr distancing herself from chris without proper explaination while blaming him for being white, then this book is bullshit.
Khalil needed you, I wanna say. He waited for you and cried for you. But where were you? You don’t get to cry now. Nuh-uh. It’s too late. But she keeps crying. Rocking and crying.
couldn't really place it up until now but i figured i don't like the writing style ehhh
I don’t know why I can’t make myself bring it up. It’s Tumblr. But then, it’s Tumblr.
@ author no.....its really not what u think it is
“You’re white, okay?” I yell. “You’re white!” Silence. “I’m white?” he says, like he’s just hearing that for the first time. “What the fuck’s that got to do with anything?” “Everything! You’re white, I’m black. You’re rich, I’m not.” “That doesn’t matter!” he says. “I don’t care about that kinda stuff, Starr. I care about you.” “That kinda stuff is part of me!” “Okay, and . . . ? It’s no big deal. God, seriously? This is what you’re pissed about? This is why you’re giving me the silent treatment?”
here it is, the phrase ive been waiting for. but im gonna be honest, theyre both absolute idiots here, so its not like this is especially stupid. just stupid.
mean, it’s kinda messed up that we’re protesting a drug dealer’s death, but—”
why these girls so dumb tho lmao
If I sit out a protest, I’m making a statement, but if they sit out a protest, they look racist.
Daddy once told me there’s a rage passed down to every black man from his ancestors, born the moment they couldn’t stop the slave masters from hurting their families. Daddy also said there’s nothing more dangerous than when that rage is activated.
“It’s really something that you’re alive,” I say. Snitches get stitches doesn’t apply to King Lords. More like snitches get graves.
irrelevant to the passage, i just thought of it: starr is a pretty shallow character, the whole book so far is just her watching things happening and not giving much insight. this is literally 50% of the book and nothing really had happened, and i barely know anything about anyone.
“What did you do?” I ask.
im legit startled every time starr actually says something. this is bad
“Fine,” she says. “Just like I felt it was fine to protest. Since I won’t apologize for what I felt, and you won’t apologize for what you felt, I guess we’ll just watch TV.” “Fine,” I say.
Funny. Slave masters thought they were making a difference in black people’s lives too. Saving them from their “wild African ways.” Same shit, different century. I wish people like them would stop thinking that people like me need saving.
“This is awful,” Hailey says. “That poor family.” She’s looking at One-Fifteen Sr. with sympathy that belongs to Brenda and Ms. Rosalie. I blink several times. “What?” “His son lost everything because he was trying to do his job and protect himself. His life matters too, you know?” I cannot right now. I can’t. I stand up or otherwise I will say or do something really stupid. Like punch her. “I need to . . . yeah.” I say all that I can and start for the door, but Maya grabs the tail of my cardigan. “Whoa, whoa. You guys haven’t worked this out yet,” she says. “Maya,” I say, as calmly as
...more
got a lot of thoughts on this one here
I blurt out, “Why did you unfollow my Tumblr?” Hailey turns toward me. “What?” “You unfollowed my Tumblr. Why?”
im sorry but this is like.... still so absurd to me lmao
“That’s not why she unfollowed you. She said she didn’t wanna see that shit on her dashboard.” I figured. “That Emmett Till picture, right?” “No. All the ‘black stuff,’ she called it. The petitions. The Black Panther pictures. That post on those four little girls who were killed in that church. The stuff about that Marcus Garvey guy. The one about those Black Panthers who were shot by the government.”
r u for real
That’s the problem. We let people say stuff, and they say it so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us. What’s the point of having a voice if you’re gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn’t be?
