In The Heat of The Night

 Watching "In The Heat of The Night," it seems as if the whole movie was made around dismantling the lie of separate but equal. It talks strongly in the sense that the law may say one thing, but the people feel another way—something that no law can change. Especially when the law does not agree with the law, choosing not to enforce it.

The Supreme Court's promise in Plessy v. Ferguson gave a cruel statement when they said separate but equal. They created a divide in the whole nation because, like the talk we had in class is, where does it stop? What happens when someone is mixed or a Mexican American? What is the classification end? This law knew no end and was up to the discretion of people with hate-filled hearts, like in the movie.

Throughout the whole movie, there were times where all of the cops hated the fact that the detective was down there and wanted to find anything they could on him to send him back or send him to jail. They took this opportunity when they said that he was holding evidence. They did not care to hear him out. Rather, they just wanted to lock him up in a cell and demoralize him when he was the smartest one in the room. This happened again when they first examined the body. The white doctor did not know everything that he was talking about, but the detective made groundbreaking discoveries on the real time of death. This was one of the first times that the officers felt inferior.

Moving past all of the ugliness "The Heat of The Night" exposes, the film left me with a semi-positive feeling. Not because racism is solved by the end—because we know that it clearly isn't. But because change, however slow and painful, it is finally proven to be possible to have improvement. Tibbs and Gillespie's handshake at the train station isn't a happily ever after; it's a beginning. It's two men who've finally learned to see past color just enough to respect each other's humanity and true self-worth. It shows that PROGRESS is POSSIBLE.