From a very young age, we are taught to respect authority.

We are told to respect our elders. We are taught to respect our parents, our teachers. We are instructed to respect police, to respect legislators, to respect the legal system. We are told to respect the President of the United States, whether or not we like him (yes— him). We are taught to respect the law.

But then we are taught how often the law has failed us.

We learn in school about laws that made women property, that treated rape as a theft against a man rather than an assault against a woman. We read about centuries of legalized slavery, followed by a Jim Crow era that condoned rather than condemned heartless racism and brutal assault. We know that barely a generation ago it was illegal in some places for a black man to marry a white woman. It is a thread woven through the fabric of our nation— all of the times that the laws have been wrong. Morally wrong, ethically wrong, and often based in ideology that is factually wrong.

So what do you do when you look around you and you see that nothing has changed?

Sure, the law doesn’t condone segregation anymore (although economics do) and sexual assault is now treated as such (even though 54 percent of rapes go unreported and 97 percent of rapists don’t spend a day in jail). But immoral, unethical, and discriminatory laws are still all around us. We see it in Stop-and-Frisk policies that have been repeatedly proven to be racist. We see it in laws that allow conversion therapy, electrocuting the brains of LGBT+ teens without their consent in a (completely debunked) effort to make them cisgender and straight. Most recently, we have seen it over and over on the site of the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota.

As many of you have heard already, the Dakota Access Pipeline would be an oil line to transport black gold from North Dakota to Illinois. The only problem is that the path of said pipeline would cut across the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, destroying sacred land and posing serious health risks to its residents. It’s not as though the project developer doesn’t know better— the pipeline was originally intended to run through Bismarck (a city that is 92% white), but was rerouted due to concerns that it could endanger the municipal water supply.

And so the people of Standing Rock stood, and others stood with them.

For months, protesters from across the nation and around the globe have converged on Standing Rock in an effort to stop the construction of the pipeline. Unfortunately, their efforts haven’t gone over well. In response to individuals taking advantage of their 1st Amendment right to peaceful protest, militarized police have been dispatched and attacked the protesters, claiming that they are trespassing on company land.

People have been shot with water cannons in freezing weather. People have been shot with rubber bullets and compression grenades. They have been maced and tear gassed. Attack dogs have been released into crowds. This is what the law is doing for us. This is what our government condones.

Then, finally, on December 4, the Army Corps of Engineers announced that it will be rerouting the pipeline. Protesters rejoiced, but it isn’t over yet. According to CNN, “The corporations behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, said in a statement Sunday night that they “fully expect to complete construction of the pipeline without any additional rerouting in and around Lake Oahe.’” And, by the way, President-Elect Donald Trump has announced that he supports the current path of the pipeline, in which he has capital invested.

So what do you do when the law is not on your side? What do you do when human beings are being physically accosted, against their constitutional and human rights? More specifically, what do we do if the pipeline attempts to continue construction on sacred Native lands, and our laws do nothing to stop them?

The reality is that sometimes laws, like the people who make them, are simply unethical. It is an inescapable reality, and the best that we can do is stand up against injustice when we see it and do our best to be better in the future. Many people love to use alleged criminality as an excuse to condemn others. A man who was stealing deserves to be shot. A woman buying cocaine deserves to be imprisoned. A protester who trespasses deserved to have mace sprayed in their eyes and attack dogs released to scare them away. If this is the truth, then here is my question: Where is the humanity in our laws? Where is the humanity in us? If we can truly turn a blind eye to tremendous injustice simply because our laws condone it, then what is the point of democracy, of free will?

While I do not condone violence, and I do not condone illegal behavior, I will far more strongly condemn actions that fail to recognize people’s humanity. I’m not interested in descending into anarchy, but I do think that we must be constantly aware and constantly diligent. And we must never, ever stop fighting against the laws that fail us, as many have throughout history.

Remember how we were taught to respect our elders? Well, maybe you don’t have to respect that one old racist aunt who calls you names and insults your family members simply because she is older than you. And maybe, just maybe, laws aren’t right just because they have been written.