system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How was segregation justified in the American South?

I would like to understand how supporters of segregation justified their views on segregation. Obviously everyone understands why it's wrong, but how were they able to justify it in their minds?
gpt
Scientific racism.  It was believed that white people and non-white people were fundamentally different, and the only way to protect white people from the genetically inferior non-white people was to segregate.  This was further fueled by scare politics, which used lies and intimidation to tell white people that black people were merely waiting to rape and pillage white houses, due to their inferior genetics and natural "savageness".  This idea persisted for a long long time, and the idea that things were "contaminated" by non-white people still exists in a lot of areas.

Technically, we understand why de jure segregation is wrong.  De facto segregation still exists, and things are actually much more segregated now than they ever were during de jure segregation.