Intervention!

It’s Saturday, November 8, 2003...and San Diego Chargers defensive end RAHSAAN JOHNSON drives home from a team meeting only to face a traffic stop.

When it rains, it pours: His team’s lost eleven out of its last twelve games coming into a meeting the next day with the Minnesota Vikings...and SDPD officer RAUL MONTERO meets Rahsaan with a ticket and an ultimatum to get that busted taillight on Rahsaan’s brand-new Pontiac Grand Prix fixed.

Fast-forward to today...Rahsaan, a thinking man, reminisces about the police encounter with his witty wife and business partner ROSALIND and their children KWAME and A’JA. Soon, A’ja pops the question: “Dad...our neighbors are people of color, too. Did they get stopped by the cops like you did?”

The answer comes two weeks later, when the Johnsons throw a neighborhood potluck.

Potluck guests dish away with stories of their own: Retired record-store owner GUS ANDERSON recalls when a California Highway Patrol officer stopped him in 1992 after a Los Angeles record show on suspicion of drugs in Gus’ car...MEGHAN BEDARD, the teenage daughter of educator RUSSELL and of counselor SASHEEN, talks about how noted local organ teacher PAMELYN O’BRIEN wouldn’t take the resourceful Meghan on as a student because the Bedards are Native Americans, and an organ is, in stern Pamelyn’s mind, “too complicated” for an Indigenous person to grasp...animal trainer KELLY CHO and her hubby, factory worker BRIAN WU, tell how San Diego talk-radio icon RICHARD SHINGLEDECKER banned team-oriented, wary Kelly from calling egotistical Richard’s station for asking him to stop calling COVID-19 “the Chinese flu.”

To top it all off, husband-and-wife florists FERNANDO and GRACIELA GARCIA team up with progeny SELENA and JAVIER to sound off on KYLE WITHEM, the sacker at a nearby supermarket whose chronic, race-based rudeness has caused the Garcias to take their business to another food store.

Runs in the family: Hotheaded Kyle’s parents are White Supremacists KELVIN and LEAH...participants all in the coup attempt in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, January 6, 2021.

Brian’s and Kelly’s children ANNABELLE and JEREMY round out the group of sixteen would-be mentors...people who vow to round up the bigots in these neighbors’ lives and teach them a lesson...”a lesson they’ll never forget.” The bottom line: It’s all about creating a dialog.

Lively-authoritative-bitter Gus and the neighbor families he lives alongside talk strategy over the next month...and decide to stage a sensitivity-training weekend. To populate it with the haters in their lives, impulsive Russell suggests using the things the haters like...such as travel.

Although Rosalind and Rahsaan don’t land Raul, they DO use travel to lure MARK and MELANIE BABICH, the hubby-wifey realtors who double as Amway/Quixtar distributors...and were Rosalind’s Amway/Quixtar mentors. Uninhibited Melanie’s crime: Talking down to Rosalind.

Talking down to Navy veteran Gus gets his business guide, fellow ex-record-store owner GEORGE RODENBERGER, a spot in the antiracism workshop...in place of “that 'CHiPs' reject.”

The intervention takes place on the last weekend in August at...the Mira Mesa Recreation Center, where indicted ex-Congressman BAKER HINES, a frequent guest on Richard’s show who wants his House seat back, and Richard’s ukelele-playing wife, the insecure HOLLY, bring the list of perpetrators to ten.

After the ten perps express anger over being lured into a less-exotic destination than they envisioned, A’ja, Kwame, Meghan, Rahsaan, Rosalind, Russell, and calm Sasheen run the clinic’s opening day...using Jane Elliott’s famed “Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes” exercise and a showing of “Billy Jack” to bring about a change.

When fatherly George apologizes to Gus for not taking his protege seriously and for talking down to him, seven perps turn on George...but as Holly looks perplexed, eager-to-please Mark nods at George in understanding.

The next day begins with Kyle hitting Gus and an Annabelle the youngest Withem thinks is Kelly. With Kelly, Gus, and fun-loving Brian in charge, the weekend becomes a series of interrogations...and perpetrator anger turns the heat up on the weekend.

It culminates in Kyle grabbing Gus’ throat after the latter, in reaction to Pamelyn’s call to “pull yourselves up by your bootstraps,” shows a documentary about the 1921 Tulsa massacre.

The sacker’s reward: After other mentors have Kyle strip down to his underpants and bind and gag him for asking for a return to slavery, Kelly, Gus, and Annabelle bullwhip him until he collapses.

Leah and other perps think Kyle’s dead.

Richard’s constant referral to people as “human rubbish” and Holly’s decision to homeschool their three children to keep them away from people of color land the couple in...a dumpster. And the otherwise-perky Graciela and usually-kooky Fernando help lift Holly and Richard to the dumpster!

Rahsaan and Rosalind call on outside help to save a workshop that’s made the TV news and caused the Withems to press charges on the mentors: JUBILEE DAVIS, an old college prof of Rahsaan’s; and MARY JEAN OBERBILLIG, one of Rosalind’s fellow ex-Chargers cheerleaders who formerly ran Baker’s House campaign. Even Raul shows up...and tells all he’s no longer a cop, due to the May 25, 2020 death of George Floyd.

Things turn around, all right...starting with Melanie’s apology to Rosalind. Pamelyn hears Meghan at a recital at Spreckels Pavilion...and comes away impressed enough to offer to help the youngest Bedard “take your playing to the next level.” Meghan gives it a “YES!”

Kyle proves he’s still alive...and at the hospital where he recovers, he tells THE TWO OFFICERS about to arrest Gus and the Cho Wu family to “Let ‘em go!” Kyle confesses he had the whipping coming...and when he decides to leave White Supremacy behind, Leah and Kelvin turn their backs on him. On top of that, Kyle apologizes to the Garcias for his rudeness toward them.

Holly waffles...but Baker cancels his campaign and Richard quits his talk show to complete the circle.