In the book there's only one Black guy in her grade, and they overtly have the fight the stereotype all the White kids put on them that they should get together just because they're the only two Black kids in their class.
He wasn't a Black Panther, he was a former gangbanger who just stanned the Black Panthers (at least in the book). In the book he had to get her out of the hood because it was too dangerous for her to be there as his daughter was always going to be a target and the local school wasn't shyt for kids and just kept them in the gang, but he was trying to be the ultra-overprotective father who would keep her from dating at all, and he didn't even know about the White boy until way late.
That was a stupid change from the book, because in the book he never touches the hairbrush, he just begins to open the door and the cop claims after-the-fact that the hairbrush looked like a gun handle when it was just sitting inside the car door. I guess they had him grab it in the movie cause the explanation took too long for film.
Cop don't look innocent in the book AT ALL. He's pure guilty from beginning to end with no excuses.
That scene ain't even in the book at all.
None of that stuff he was talking about was in the book at all.
In the book that happens near the end but it is almost like an aside. The kingpin getting locked up is like a silver lining but the police violence is still the central cloud and it's responding to that violence that she's focused on all the way down to the final lines. It does not feel like a "rosy" ending at all, but she's empowered because she's going to keep speaking up against those cops.
I had some problems with the book, but it sounds like the problems people having with the movie are completely different.
