He's been visiting family in the area, and is hoping to travel north, but the local police are searching for culprits, and the colour of his skin makes him a prime suspect.
Difficult to imagine how something as harmless as the colour of someone's skin, could result in so much injustice, so much fear, so much confusion.
Can you remember when you were really young and there were just assortments of different people, and the colour of their skin meant nothing, as it hopefully still does, they were just people, some dark, some light?
Long before disreputable influences tried to ignorantly promote racist ideologies, that have no basis in fact, and encourage violent rather than peaceful communities, wasn't it just cool that some people were black, some white, some brown, some Asian?
And so on.
There were babysitters, classmates, local shopkeepers, friends, nothing mattered but what they had to say, or didn't if they were quiet and thoughtful, a world free from distressing prejudice.
Doesn't the breaking down of barriers encourage more productive collegial thought, as a wide spectrum of compelling ideas resultantly considers and complements diversity?
Isn't it fascinating to learn new things and don't racist ideologies prevent the flourishing of ideas, the development of new technologies, the cultivation of art and sport?
Isn't it preferable to visit every neighbourhood in a community without the fear of confrontation, isn't it preferable to feel safe wherever you go wherever you happen to live?
That's been my general experience in Canada and Québec and I imagine it's the same in large swathes of continental Europe. It's tough to imagine cities with neighbourhoods you simply don't visit, because segregation has become cultural.
Biden and Harris are fighting it anyways and millions of other constructive Americans, as Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) does in In the Heat of the Night, with assuréd courageous confidence.
He's taken into the local police station where they're surprised to find out he's a cop, who specializes in homicide, and can help them find the killer.
He ignores the racial tension and rigorously applies himself, with such tenacious freedom that Chief Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger) fears for his life.
Gillespie adds a lot as someone who would likely push for reform, if he wasn't alone and isolated, if he had a network, friends, community.
He recognizes how essential Tibbs is even if he fears the repercussions, and that it's not the colour of one's skin which determines competence, but the ways in which people proactively apply themselves.
Racism was fought so actively in my youth In the Heat of the Night became a TV show, it's been incredibly depressing for the last 5 years to see racism reemerge with political support.
In the U.S.
It's simply never made sense to me, why would people brazenly ignore fact and science?
Doesn't every religion support peaceful communal development?
Regardless of ethnicity or race?
It's one of the most old school ideas.
Generally free of charge.
Hospitable and chill, calm, constructive.
Open-minded.
Edifying.
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