In other words, we reduce the whole question to one of “star-bellied sneetches” and scratch our heads in amazement that intelligent people once thought that whites were superior to blacks. Of course we know they were wrong for thinking this, but they were not stupid in thinking this. They were dealing with objective facts, which (they assumed) could only have one explanation. It was this latter assumption that tripped them up so badly, and not the objective realities they were trying to account for.