The Hate U Give: Chapter 12 Summary & Analysis

Tanks rumble through Garden Heights. A curfew has been implemented, and Maverick is home with the family. Everyone feels safer with him around, and the mood is lighter in the Carter home. Maverick tends to his roses, which he fears are dying. He and Lisa have made up, and Maverick watches his wife as she works on the computer. Starr assumes she’s on Facebook updating her out-of-town relatives, but wonders how she could post positive news without mentioning everything that has been happening. Maverick asks Starr to get her old laptop to give to DeVante for school.

Back in her bedroom, Starr checks on the new Tumblr blog she has started called The Khalil I Know. It includes photographs and stories about Khalil that contradict and complicate the image the media is painting of him. She sends the Tumblr link to Kenya. Though this isn’t speaking up on the news, Starr feels that she is still doing something for her friend. Soon, hundreds of people have liked her photos and begin posting their own memories of Khalil. Someone posts a video of Tupac explaining “Thug Life,” and Starr finally feels like she fully understands what it really means.

Starr brings her old laptop to Seven’s room, where he and DeVante are playing video games. She notices the Slytherin blanket on Seven’s bed and notes that they all wanted to be Slytherins when they were little because they associated the Harry Potter house with being rich—which, when you are living in the projects, she says, is “the best thing anybody can be.” Starr also notices the black trash bag of clothes next to Seven’s bed, and Seven tells her that King moved back in with Iesha and officially kicked him out of the house. Starr tries to comfort Seven, but he insists he is okay.

Starr hears Lisa speaking in her “other” voice on the phone. She is speaking to the District Attorney about Starr coming in to talk. Maverick does not like the idea, but Starr thinks it will help Khalil, and agrees to do it.

The next morning Kenya finally texts Starr back about the Tumblr, saying simply “its aight.” Starr is happy, knowing this is a compliment coming from Kenya. She wonders if Kenya took a long time to respond because she was dealing with the fallout of King, who beats her and her sister in addition to Iesha, moving back into her house. Starr knows Kenya won’t open up about that, but tells Kenya she will be there for her if she needs her.

Lisa take Starr to the Just Us for Justice office, which occupies an old Taco Bell. Maverick used to take Seven and Starr there right after he got out of prison and did not have much money; he often had to go to the cash advance building next door, which was the first indication to a young Starr that necessities do not simply “show up” but must be paid for by someone.

The office is empty of people but filled with posters of Huey Newton, Malcolm X, and other Black Panthers. Ms. Ofrah says her colleagues are out leading discussions and protests on the street where Khalil was murdered. Starr is taken aback by how easily Ms. Ofrah uses the word “murder” to describe Khalil’s death. Maverick arrives late, explaining that he had to get DeVante situated at the shop to watch over Mr. Lewis, fearing King’s retaliation for Mr. Lewis’s snitching in his TV interview.

Ms. Ofrah calls Starr brave for speaking to the police, though Starr does not believe it about herself. Ms. Ofrah then explains that if the District Attorney wants to talk with Starr, it means they are preparing to take Khalil’s case to a grand jury, where Starr will have to testify. Starr fears she will not be able to answer certain questions, such whether there was a gun in the car. Ms. Ofrah reveals that the “gun” the media has been mentioning was nothing more than Khalil’s hairbrush. In the darkness, the handle looked thick enough—and, Maverick adds, Khalil was black enough—that One-Fifteen allegedly mistook it for a weapon. Starr is horrified that Khalil died over such a meaningless thing.

Ms. Ofrah tells Starr that One-Fifteen’s father will be giving a television interview on his son’s behalf. Realizing the whole world will get to hear One-Fifteen’s side of the story, Starr grows determined to tell Khalil’s. Starr tells Ms. Ofrah about seeing her other friend get murdered—a word she now does not hesitate to say—as a child, and says that no one was ever caught. People did not seem to think Natasha mattered enough. Starr wants the world to know that she did matter, and that “Khalil mattered too.”  Emboldened, Starr agrees to do a television interview so long as they obscure her identity.

Maverick then gets a phone call from a frantic DeVante about something the others don’t hear, and says they are on their way.