Abstract
This thesis unpacks what the young adult novels The Hate U Give and Dear Martin convey to adolescent readers, deliberately or unintentionally, concerning race relations in the United States. Critical Race Theory (CRT) is used as a critical lens in order to understand how these novels enlighten certain issues to create a better understanding of the premise of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
The CRT approach to The Hate U Give shows that the novel presents important counter-narratives that provide a different perspective on how race is perceived in contemporary society. These narratives show a nuanced picture of the dynamics between the police and young black people in urban areas, the circumstances surrounding police killings of black people, and how black people are posthumously portrayed by the media. The novel also enlightens the intersection of race and other forms of insubordination and that the misfortune of black Americans in urban areas is primarily caused by a lack of opportunities for upward mobility. The CRT perspective shows that Dear Martin emphasizes the more unrecognizable forms of racism in society and shows how they impact marginalized people. These topics include racial profiling, internalized racism, white privilege, colorblindness, and implicit bias. The novel uses a counter-narrative to shed light on how these issues severely affect people of color.
Together, these novels emphasize that police brutality and police killings of black people are just a fragment of America’s race issue. Instead, instances of police violence are used to introduce and underline other significant racial issues. Consequently, the novels reflect that the purpose of Black Lives Matter is about racial justice and social transformation.
