Contemporary activists can benefit from Archbishop Tutu’s ideas about restorative justice and strengthen their quest for fundamental fairness. The goal of restorative justice, he said, is “the healing of breaches, the redressing of imbalances, the restoration of broken relationships” and rehabilitating the victim and the perpetrator, with the latter “given the opportunity to be reintegrated into the community he has injured by his offense.” It’s not just about punishment.And yet for some advocates of retributive justice, a wide array of circumstances warrant the greatest possible punishments these days.Many Democratic officials thought that instead of remaining in office with a reprimand, Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia should have resigned or been forced out of office over a blackface controversy decades earlier. He ended up receiving restorative justice more by default than conscious choice — he refused to heed calls to resign — and did a great deal of good for Black folk in his remaining years in office: He increased focus on racial justice, paying especially close attention to maternal mortality, equity in transportation and funding for historically Black colleges. He changed how schools teach the history of race, got a Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond removed and restored the voting rights of tens of thousands of felons, a sizable share of them Black.By contrast, take the case of Amy Cooper, a white woman who falsely claimed to the police that an amateur bird-watcher, Chris Cooper, who is Black, had threatened her. After a public outcry, she was fired from her job. Although she received some form of restorative justice, an even better approach would have been her keeping her job while her employer demanded that she read and study more about race, Black masculinity, white privilege and social injustice. The loss of her job as an act of retributive justice left all these structural issues aside and merely shamed her without transforming her or using her circumstances to throw light on similar cases.On the surface, the demands for retribution for Governor Northam and Ms. Cooper may sound like racial justice, but in truth, they thwart the forgiveness that offers both substantive and strategic advantages.If racists are willing to admit their wrong and do the work, the community is made stronger by their literal or symbolic return. Punishment may feel cathartic to those harmed by a wrong action, but it may not achieve real justice. The moral intent of restoration is to create a flourishing community that acknowledges the wrong done, holds wrongdoers accountable and invites them back into the community from which their offense estranged them. Thus, Black activists may gain an ally in the effort to combat racism. If white people forgiven their errors are welcomed back, the burden on Black people is by that measure lessened.Archbishop Tutu was keen on white and Black folk getting along as justly and truthfully as possible. Contemporary movements are understandably eager to expose and confront the ugly truth of racism, whether it is the lie that critical race theory is being taught in elementary schools or the myth that Confederate monuments are more about Southern honor than Black contempt.