The Hate U Give: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

Lisa drives Starr and Sekani to Williamson Prep, passing by Carlos’s gated neighborhood on the way. Starr wonders if the gate is trying to keep people out or in. Upon arriving at school, Starr flips the “switch” in her brain to become “Williamson Starr,” the persona she inhabits to fit in with the posh, predominantly white world of Williamson. She avoids slang and “stank eyes,” and holds her tongue so that she won’t seem like a stereotypical “angry black girl.” Above all, she does not want anyone to think she is “ghetto.”

Starr greets her friend Maya, an Asian American student at Williamson whose boyfriend, Ryan, is the only other black student in their grade. Starr says that other students assumed she and Ryan would date because both are black. They find Hailey, Starr’s oldest friend at Williamson, and other members of the basketball team. As her friends talk about their extravagant spring breaks spent at fancy islands and amusement parks, Starr feels distinctly out of place once again. She also feels tension with Hailey, and notes that she has ever since Hailey unfollowed Starr’s Tumblr when she posted a photograph of Emmett Till. In their world, unfollowing a Tumblr is equivalent to saying, “I don’t like you anymore.” Starr also recalls that she and Hailey became close through grief; Hailey’s mother died of cancer around the same time that Natasha was killed.

Before first period, Starr runs into Chris, whom she has been ignoring since he took out a condom while they were in his bedroom, despite her telling him she was not ready to have sex. Starr misses him, however, and finds herself unable to stay angry when Chris goofily raps the introduction to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Starr feels like she can be herself with Chris, rather than “Williamson Starr.” When Chris grabs her hand, however, she flashes back to Khalil’s shooting, unable to separate Chris’s whiteness from One-Fifteen’s. She recoils.

Though it feels like a betrayal, Starr is relieved that no one at school mentions Khalil. At the end of the day she finds Seven with his girlfriend Layla, another black student at Williamson who is “smart enough for Harvard but Howard bound.” Seven drives Starr and Sekani to the clinic where Lisa works. On the way, a police car pulls beside them at a stoplight. Tension fills the car. Seven immediately turns his music down and stares straight ahead, while Starr prays for the light to change. When it does, Seven lets the cop pass, but his shoulders remain tense until they reach the freeway.

The children arrive at the clinic and greet Lisa. Soon an anguished Brenda arrives, looking completely disheveled with dirty clothes and uncombed hair. She is beside herself over Khalil’s death, but Starr judges her in her grief, pointing out that she was not there for her son  in his time of need. Lisa scolds Starr, asserting that she has no right to judge and that Brenda was Khalil’s mother no matter what either of them did.