Tupac Shakur was a man of many contradictions, a man who wrote songs with socially uplifting songs such as “Changes” and violent ones such as “Hit ‘em Up”. On the outside, he embraced the persona of the “thug life”, associating himself with gangs and guns, yet on the inside, he was a sensitive poet who wrote “Long live the rose that grew from concrete / when no one else ever cared.” He exploited and objectified women yet also loved and respected them; “Dear Mama” is a sweet ode to his mother, acknowledging that raising children on welfare was not easy and that he appreciates her, yet “Skandalouz” insults women, calling them “scandalous bitches”.
Nonetheless, he is a revered rapper, a person whose character has been immortalized by his music, persona, and by popular culture. In many ways, Tupac is a modern Shakespearean tragic hero. Like Romeo Montague, another intense, immortal male character who sexualized and objectified women, his life culminated in an “untimely death”. Tupac was murdered in 1996 and died at the age of 25. Both Tupac and Romeo were young men who enjoyed the company of their posses. Both were in love at the time of their deaths; Tupac was engaged, and Romeo was newly married to Juliet. Both committed crimes; Tupac was imprisoned for sexual assault and was involved in other violent incidents. Romeo, though resistant to fighting, eventually murdered Tybalt for killing his best friend. Both were also affected by their family’s circumstances and the unfair restrictions imposed by society. They could not escape their tragic fates.
I am a fan but not an expert on Tupac and have had a renewed interest in his life and music after reading and loving Angie Thomas’s debut novel The Hate U Give. The protagonist, Starr Carter, is a sixteen-year old young woman who is caught between conflicting worlds, one in which she and her loving family are proud residents of Garden Heights, a mostly poor, black neighborhood and Williamson, the private school she attends that is 45 minutes away and where she is one of a few black students. This causes her to have a dual life; she tries to hide her “ghetto” side with her friends at school and feels she cannot be herself with most of the students there, and in her own neighborhood, she often feels like an outsider. Early in the story, when Starr witnesses a police officer shooting and killing her childhood friend, Khalil, she tries to hide the truth about what happened from her private school peers. Over time, she learns to confront and speak out against the injustice of his death and becomes a spokesperson for her community. In the end, she admits: “I was ashamed of Garden Heights and everything in it. It seems stupid now though. I can’t change where I come from or what I’ve been through, so why should I be ashamed of what makes me, me? That’s like being ashamed of myself.” This is a lesson that can also be learned from Tupac who was not ashamed of himself and wrote honestly of his personal experiences and struggles as a black man; in “Me Against the World”, he wrote: “Can you picture my prophecy? / Stress in the city, the cops is on top of me / The projects is full of bullets, though bodies is droppin'.” This could be the themesong of The Hate U Give since so many characters such as Starr and Khalil live in low-income housing and witness regular shootings.
Another important connection to Tupac is the title of the book. Khalil explained to Starr: “The Hate U - the letter U - Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody, T-H-U-G L-I-F-E. Meaning what society give us as youth, it bites them in the ass when we wild out.” This relates to an important theme in the text, that when certain groups, particularly black people living in low-income neighborhoods, are perceived as mere thugs and treated with disdain and disregard, all people living in these communities suffer. This is evident in American society today; in the last few years, scores of innocent, unarmed black men and women have been killed by police officers, leading to civil unrest and frustration over police tactics of racial profiling and use of excessive force.
Khalil, like Tupac, was misunderstood; many saw him as a thug, stigmatizing him because he was selling drugs and was involved with gangs. But Starr helped people see his admirable qualities and the complicated elements of his life. Through her, we are reminded not to judge people based on stereotypes and that we cannot stay quiet when people like Khalil, Trayvon Martin, Freddie Gray, and Emmett Till are unjustly killed. As citizens of the United States, we should act, march, and peacefully fight for a safer society; as Tupac says, “it’s time for us a people to start makin’ some changes”.
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