Why Is Man Made Law Unjust

Colin Wright

February 19, 2016

Blue Humanities

Opposition of U.S. Law to Divine Law Divine law, as expressed by definition.org, can be defined as, “Any law (or rule) that in the opinion of believers, comes directly from the will of God (or a god).” Divine law is not man-made, and therefore cannot be put forth as an opportunity to perceive at will. Man-made law, on the other hand, is just the opposite. As it has been depicted through the United States’ history in dealing with racial controversy, man-made law has been construed and misinterpreted all for the sake of an excuse; it has been distorted in an attempt to protect the wants – not necessities – of whites and their social rank. Martin Luther King, Jr., in the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,”

law to that of divine law is this: divine law is considered just, as it comes from the word of God. U.S. law is unjust because it is out of harmony with the moral law (God’s law). (King, 3-4). To paraphrase King, unjust laws create a dual class of “I” and “it”, where the white man seems to look down on the black man as an object, or property. Unjust laws include not allowing a minority to vote and then enacting laws of which inflict harm on that minority. Unjust laws are any laws that are made to prevent a minority from taking part in an action without the intent for the white man to follow that same law. (King, 4). All of these examples from King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” provide a structure by which King outlines the opposition of U.S. law and divine law. In short, all divine laws are just, but the same cannot be said for the man-made U.S. law, as it has let harsh racism and acts of cruelty toward minority groups of all kinds slip through the cracks of the legal system rather than being acted upon

(King, 3). Wells-Barnett also gave an excruciatingly detailed account of just how brutally blacks were treated by whites in “On Lynchings”. She recites the hanging, beating, stabbing, burning, and dragging of the body of Lee Walker, a black man who did nothing outside of asking two women for food. The aftermath? Walker was accused of rape and sentenced, not by authorities, but by a civilian mob, to death by nothing less than torture. What do both of these portrayals have in common? Both are accounts of whites showing severe and often fatal brutality toward black people, obviously breaking the law of the United States, and yet getting off of the hook. Racism ran (and still runs today, although not in a dominative fashion, but rather aversively) through the entire nation, including civilians, police, even church