Final answer:
Society can still be unjust despite fair laws due to ongoing discrimination, societal norms overriding laws, and laws being manipulated to perpetuate injustice option (d). Historical examples like lynching, despite the Fourteenth Amendment, highlight these discrepancies.
Step-by-step explanation:
How can society be unjust even when the written "law of the land" is fair? The answer is d) All of the above, which encompasses the following elements:
- Society may still discriminate and carry out acts of violence even if the laws are fair. Although the Fourteenth Amendment was created to protect rights, lynching still occurred with only a handful of convictions despite the severity of these acts.
- Society's unjust customs can override fair laws in certain situations, as seen in historical practices of segregation or failure to protect from lynchings.
- Laws can be manipulated to perpetrate injustice, such as the due process of law being used to protect corporations or the Jim Crow era segregation laws that stood until the Civil Rights Movement.
Thus, societal norms, cultural values, and the enforcement of laws play significant roles in whether justice is truly upheld, regardless of the fairness of laws themselves.