All 9 Uses of

inferior
in
Black Like Me

I could have been a Jew in Germany, a Mexican in a number of states, or a member of any "inferior" group.†
*

inferior = (adjective) of low quality, or of lower quality or rank than something else OR (more rarely as a noun) a person of lower rank or status

I was astonished to see an intelligent man fall for this cliche, and equally astonished that Negroes would advance it, for in effect it placed the dark Negro in an inferior position and fed the racist idea of judging a man by his color.†

He said it would quickly prove to us that we can't measure up—disillusion us by showing us that we are, in fact, inferior.†

Yet this accident, this least important of all qualities, the skin pigment, marked them for inferior status.†

When the segregationist argues that the Negro is scholastically inferior, he presents the most eloquent possible argument for desegregated schools; he admits that so long as the Negro is kept in tenth-rate schools he will remain scholastically behind white children.†

I have looked diligently for all aspects of "inferiority" among them and I cannot find them.†

inferiority = the state of being of low quality or of lower quality than something else

Such men, deeply offended to be excluded from participation with black men in the solutions to the problems of racism, sometimes begin to look for symptoms of inferiority as a means of self-defense.†

Definitions:

(1) (inferior)
of low quality, or of lower quality or rank than something else -- sometimes used as a noun to refer to a person of lower rank or status
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
meaning too rare to warrant focus:

Less commonly, specialized senses include:
- anatomy and botany -- a lower position on a body or plant (or pointed downward)
- typography -- a character that drops beneath a printing line (such as with subscript)
- astronomy -- having an orbit relative to the sun that is lower than earth's (making Mercury and Venus inferior planets)