Why do we turn to blockbuster trials to satisfy our hunger for justice? Americans are told from birth that punishment solves problems. Retribution is the closest thing we have to a common religion. Redress certainly feels good, like a sugar high; I, too, felt a wave of relief upon reading that Mr. Bryan and the McMichaels had been convicted of killing Mr. Arbery — but it does not make us stronger or healthier as a society.
The fixation on these trials also points to a dearth of justice anywhere else. Police brutality seems like an inescapable part of American life, but convicting Kyle Rittenhouse or even convicting Rusten Sheskey, the officer who shot Jacob Blake, would not have halted the abuses. Neither can criminal convictions repair the deep racial inequities that lead to Black people being killed by police. George Floyd’s killer, Derek Chauvin, was convicted of murder on April 20, 2021. That did not prevent the death of Ma’Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old Black girl who was shot by police in Columbus, Ohio, the same day.
The injustice extends beyond police abuse. Conspiracy theories exacerbate public health crises. The attack on voting rights by the right leads us ever closer to minority authoritarianism. And urgent warnings of climate disaster have gone unheeded for decades. A win for the prosecution in the Rittenhouse case may have felt vindicating for those on the left side of the culture wars, but it would not have addressed any of these problems.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member