A day after the announcement of the verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin - guilty on all counts - a welter of feelings. It began with a confusion of tears. It is a good thing that justice was served, but not that justice was necessary. That there was any doubt at what the outcome would be - how apprehensive we all were - shows how suspicious we have become of our institutions; relief that the system can work gives way to gloomy awareness of how often it doesn't.
Yet George Floyd remains dead, his family bereft. Most other victims of police brutality get even less than this, of course; their killers are unpunished and often the victims are blamed for their own deaths.
My second thought, after relief and a kind of delirious joy at the announcement, was "who's next? those responsible for Sandra Bland's death? Philando Castile's? Breonna Taylor's? Daunte Wright's?..." We know too many names, though we don't know nearly enough of them, and it strains credulity to imagine there will be justice for all or even many of them. Let's work and hope for it anyway, and for more. Retributive justice by itself is still part of an unjust system.
