THUG Themes And Overview Essay Example

sixteen year veteran of the force, who just “wanted to get home to his family”(Thomas 247). At every chance possible, Khalil and Starr were made out to dangerous evil doers threatening the innocent police officer. Instead of checking for a consistency with Starr’s statement, the news just blindly put it out. This had dire consequences, causing the grand jury to not indict 115 which then caused riots,fire, and blood to spill..

The use of Tumblr tries to combat the news by posting stories and photos of Khalil. Starr uses Tumblr to show that Khalil was human, not the drug slinging demon the news made him out to be, The most effective post was tagged “the Khalil i know was afraid of animals”(Thomas 205). In this post retells the story of when her and Khalil went a ranch and Khalil was absolutely terrified of horse. It was so effective, because it directly contrasted the news tough and fearless depiction of Khalil. After Starr’s initial post, people starting posting about Khalil to oppose the media’s one dimensional depiction of Khalil.

Throughout the book we see a multitude of different cultures such as the school culture, political culture, black community culture, many of these Starr belongs to. The most predominant culture we see is the black community. We see the unfiltered reality of the community, from gangs, drugs to mom&pop shops that are pillars of the community, In Starr’s life, we see the worst of it. We see how what should have been a peaceful protest turned into riots and blood baths. How communities and families struggle to stay in one piece. The death that sets everything in motion is

the death of Khalil. In Chapter 2 we read about it, and the light hearted tone turns to grief and mourning. The passage said, “One. Khalil’s body jerks. Blood splatters from his back. He holds on to the door to keep himself upright. Pow! Two. Khalil gasps. Pow! Three. Khalil looks at me, stunned. He falls to the ground.” (Thomas 23). From this moment on the reader felt Starr’s sorrow. The point of this is to show the reader how it feels to have someone you know taken from you, and how it happens to often.

The further we get into the book the more we learn about how Starr deals with Khalil’s death. We get a little bit of information about how the black community feels his death from the Khalil t-shirts. Humans are pack animals. Most of the time we don’t realize how important our pack is until we lose part it. The pain we feel from loss is unlike any other. What we do about it defines who we are as people. Towards the end of the book, Ms. Ofrah leads a protest in that is stopped by the police. The situation became much more intense when the police were pushing everyone back. At that moment, Starr climbed on top of a police car and let everyone know that she was the witness. She led out a chant that said over and over, “Khalil lived!” Shortly after, there was a massive breakout of violence with tear gas, fire, injuries and many more. When you watch this scene in the film you see how the black community feels about the death of Khalil and

tand the lack of justice. This is important because this is the type of life the black community has to live with every day in the book/film

The media and culture mentioned previously show an important connection. It shows us how the black community truly feels about the life they have to live. Although the News and police attempt to silence, them, social media gives them a voice that they don’t have in real life, and when their voice is not heard, they WILL make their voices heard. They give themselves a voice, they won’t let it slip away. They protest protest against the injustices against them. They want to feel safe when walking down the street. They want to feel human, not like a hunted animal.

Some may like this book, some may not. Personally I liked the book, but not the ending initially. .The way Thomas writes the characters make them feel like real people, not just characters in a book. The one problem i had was the ending, it felt incomplete and without closure. As I was writing this review, I started to see THUG as an allegory for police brutality in the black community. I then realized how perfect the ending was. The readers, like the families who lose some to police brutality, are left with an empty feeling, hoping for closure or justice that will never come.