‘The Hate U Give’ and the Voice you Have

I recently watched “The Hate U Give,” directed by George Tillman Jr. and starring Amandla Stenberg, who plays Starr Carter. It is based on a book by Angie Thomas and was released on Sept. 7, 2018. This movie caught my attention because it is about a teenage girl who deals with racism and police brutality. She witnesses her African American friend, Kahlil Harris, played by Algee Smith, being murdered by the police. The movie shows the double life of Starr; she lived in a poor neighborhood, but she went to a fancy prep school. Starr couldn’t be too “hood” in the prep school, but she couldn’t be too “white” at home.

“The Hate U Give” is about a 16-year-old girl, Starr, who is trying to balance her uneasy life, but her world comes crashing down on one particular night. Starr and her childhood best friend Khalil are at a party, and they leave due to a shooting, so Khalil decides to give Starr a ride home. While they are on their way home, they are pulled over by the police. One thing Starr was always taught by her father was whenever the police stop you, always put your hand out so they could see it.

The cop asks Khalil to step out of the car so they could pat him down and check his ID. While the cop does that, Khalil takes his hand off the car to check up on Starr and picks up a brush. The officer thinks he is grabbing a gun, so he fires off on him and kills him. The shooting scarred Starr so badly that if the news found out she witnessed the shooting of Khalil, she would receive backlash from different people. One of the people who would give Starr backlash is King, the leader of the king lords. Khalil was also a part of the gang; he was only selling drugs to pay off his mother’s debt. That was the only reason why Khalil was even involved. stand, sing and praise the Lord regardless of who’s watching.” The show was truly interactive and engaging.

Stenberg connects so well with Starr’s character because she also grew up in Inglewood and went to a private high school. According to Backstage, in an article written by Ashley Lee, the 19-year-old Stenberg felt like she was born to play that role; she felt like it came naturally to her.

The reason why I watched this movie is because it’s Black History Month and it highlights the Black Lives Matter movement. The movie touches on the way society uses stereotypes of black people to justify violence and racism against them. I connected with it instantly because I am also an African American woman in America, and it shows the way police abuse their power against people of color.

This movie makes me think of the recent events that happened with George Floyd and Tyre Nichols. It saddens me to even think that we still have to go through this. But this movie shows that even though it may be hard to go through something so detrimental, you can still use your voice to help get justice.

As a regular listener to Maverick City Music and having listened to our own on-campus gospel choir, Harmonic Voices of Truth, the style of music was not substantially different from what I had expected. However, looking around the room you could see the surprise, awe and wonder on the faces of individuals who had not heard or experienced black gospel choir music before.

As time went on, these same people started to “loosen up,” clap their hands and dance along. The show was a testament to the importance of diverse entertainment and the work that the Luhrs Center does to provide cultural experiences to south-central Pennsylvania. The show was powerful, transformative and insighted an infectious energy and in the words of many, “you could truly feel the presence of the Lord.” The group continues to travel and spread their joy, soul and praise to God around the world. More information about the choir can be found on their website at harlemgospelchoir.com

SU alum Maria James-Thiaw shares spoken word poetry

On Feb. 22, students and faculty gathered in the CUB MPR to listen to the spoken word of Maria James-Thiaw, a 1996 Shippensburg University alumna. James-Thiaw is the founder of the Reclaim Artist Collective, which promotes art to marginalized groups.

James-Thiaw began by sharing with us that we were sitting in the same room in which she performed her first spoken word piece. She shared the first piece she wrote about her unwavering confidence as a freshman in college as she faced conflict with her peers, whom she later became friends with in her career.

She shared her choreopoem — a play written in poetic form — titled “HairStory,” following the journey of an ambitious black woman who aspires to be a journalist as she interviews women of color about experiences with their hair. She emphasizes that people of color who are marginalized because of their hair is a tool of white supremacy.

She read a few poems from her newest book, “Count Each Breath.” Her first poem was called “Rage,” inspired by a series of chronic illnesses she faced throughout her life. Her presence immediately filled the room as soon as she began to read and mes- merize listeners. “Firelight dances on the wick, but never ceases to burn.”

She shared with us that all of her poems are aimed to be a commentary on social justice, most of them regarding racial disparities in healthcare. She shared the implicit biases she has witnessed within a prejudiced healthcare system. She shared a poem called “Chronic,” sharing how white illnesses are tended to much more swiftly than that of a black person. “Red means emergency. Red means stop. But red is dull and unassuming on brown skin.”

She later shared a poem titled “Community,” a poem about living across the street from a white supremacist during the BLM movement. “That’s a true story,” she shared with us after reading, “and he’s still bald-headed, by the way.” The audience chuckled.

She shared another poem dedicated to her friends who passed in 2020, titled “Sisters Eulogy” — “Decorate a hearse like a wedding car. ‘Here lies another world-changing woman, gone too soon.’”

She shared one final performance from her book “Reclaiming My Time,” titled “A Fuse Blew,” sharing her outrage with the death of Trayvon Martin. At the end of the presentation, she then signed and gave out copies of her book “Reclaiming my Time.”