Race Quotes in Gone With the Wind

Does the novel actually present any evidence that black people are worse off under freedom? It barely discusses or shows the conditions of black people under slavery. It certainly shows that the white characters aren't doing as well now that they can't force black people to work for them, but the novel doesn't care enough about black people to try to imagine their lives in anything but the most cursory way.

Big Sam, the former foreman at Tara, is here made to suggest that he is offended that white people might consider him just as good as themselves. He's made to say it, moreover, in speech that is misspelled in order to suggest his inferiority and lack of education, though, you know, it was illegal for black people to get an education in the Confederate South.

The paranoid specter of black men raping white women hangs over the novel. It is an excuse for the KKK's violence, but it's also presented as an enticing possibility—remember Rhett is figured as very dark, and his almost-rape of Scarlett is presented as the most pleasurable sexual experience of the book. The book, then, takes a pleasure in imagining black people as sexual and dangerous. In short, it enjoys its racism.