Answer Injustice with Justice

The term "justice" is a hard concept to grasp in our society. It is one of those words that we define using the word. What is justice? It's justice. No need to elaborate. The Oxford Dictionary defines justice as "just behavior or treatment." It defines the word "just" as "based on or behaving according to what is morally right or fair." I think most people would believe that they act in a way that is morally right, so why do we have so much injustice in our world. Why are people's basic rights as a member of the human race taken away or ignored? And what can we do about it? In the popular TV show Game of Thrones, justice is a major theme. When told that " Sometimes it is best to answer injustice with mercy" the character Daenerys Targaryan replied, "I will answer injustice with justice."

Daenerys is not around to save those who have been treated unjustly with her dragons. However, we have a few great men and women who have spoken out against injustices around the world, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Mother Theresa. We hold these people in such high regard with the upmost respect, but we still turn a blind eye away from the lack of justice in the world around us. In Elizabeth Stewart Phelps' The Silent Partner, injustice in the factories is a major problem during the late 19th century. One character describes the reason that the upper class does nothing to help is because "They don't none of 'em know . . . It ain't because they don't care, it's because they don't know; nor do they care enough to know." The first step in fighting the injustice that runs rampant around the world is to see it and realize that we all play a part in brining about justice.