This article addresses the question: Why is there so often silence in the face of injustice? Much of this silence is socially constructed, the result of a process through which possible (and, often, previously audible) objections to injustice are muffled, not by modifying the conditions giving rise to the objections, but by other means. Not all silences are socially constructed, of course, and some of those that are may have the genuine endorsement of all those who observe them. The author examines those socially constructed silences that are clearly not uncontested or incontestable and, drawing on Stanley Milgram's classic work on obedience to authority and other, more, contemporary social psychological research, attempts to understand the social construction of various forms of silence and their consequences for current and future forms of injustice.