Plessy’s majority dismissed segregation’s meaning as black misperception

Evidence

The decision, which was 8 to 1, showed a studied ignorance (or disregard) of the realities of life in the South. According to the Court, if blacks thought such a law imposed “a badge of inferiority,” that was “not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction on it.” In any event (said the Court), laws are “powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences.” In reply, Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote a lonely but powerful dissent: “Our Constitution is color-​blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.” — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2939

Categorization

• DEFINE: The passage captures the core legal reasoning of Plessy and the color-blind-constitution counter — essential case vocabulary for a legal institutions course.
• XREF: connects to: The Plessy Court blamed blacks’ own perception for any sense of inferiority from segregation; Plessy held racial inferiority was self-imposed by black people, not state action — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations: How Building a…, 385

Broader Connections

• The Plessy Court blamed blacks’ own perception for any sense of inferiority from segregation #corroborates (1.00)
• Plessy held racial inferiority was self-imposed by black people, not state action #contradicts (0.92) — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 385