I'm Karen Gook's Bebaits, and this is Coatswitch from MPR.

In the past month, we've watched several major court cases unfold, cases that have illuminated

a lot about how race and justice work in the US.

There was the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the white 18-year-old who shot and killed two

people during the unrest last year in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and who was acquitted of all charges

in November.

A few days later, the three white men who chased down and killed Amard Arbery were all found

guilty for his murder.

Arbery, you'll remember, was a 25-year-old black man who was attacked while he was jogging

in Brunswick, Georgia last year.

November also saw the trial of organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville.

Those people were found liable for inciting violence, although as our MPR colleagues reported,

quote, jurors could not reach a verdict on two separate federal conspiracy charges over

whether organizers conspired to commit racially motivated violence or whether they had knowledge

of it and failed to prevent it.

Each of these cases has sparked discussions about whether justice was served, whether these

cases are anomalies or the norm, and what precedent they might set going forward in this

country.

But there's also what seems to be a louder and louder chorus, suggesting that trials

like these will never be able to enact real justice, and that policing and trials and

prison sentences are not the path to justice, no matter how a jury winds up ruling.

Derricka Pernel is one of the leading voices in that chorus.

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