REPARATIONS
thoughts of a white Amriccan
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Why is Gone With the Wind relevant to Reparations?
The film premiered in Atlanta, December 15, 1939, between the British and French declaration of war with Germany September 3, 1939 and the U.S. declaration of war with Japan December 8 and Germany, December 11, 1941. Gone With The Wind romanticized, rationalized, readjusted and deepened the imprint on Americans of the Big Lie of White Supremacy when support for the Nazi myth of Aryan Superiority was at its height.
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I can’t get inside the mind nor heart of Margaret Mitchell when she was writing GWTW in the Atlanta of 1926 - 1935.
GWTW persists as the classic piece of international literature that created and propagated romantic idealized characterizations of women who participated in the secession of Southern states in order to perpetuate and expand white enslavement of Blacks: the ruthless irresistible-to-men Scarlet; the suffering betrayed wife Melanie; the all-competent tongue-biting Mammy;the clever enough to dodge super-exploitation Prissy.
Perhaps precisely because Mitchell presented the romanticized facade, she exposed to her readers the then unspoken degradation of women surviving behind it. Smiling. Surviving by sustaining the relations of white male supremacy and Black male subordination; the relationship that extracted the super profits from white low wage, Black no wage labor as the South was industrialized.
Rhett survives as Eric Prince. Ashley joined the Oath keepers; Melanie volunteers at a Right to Live clinic; Scarlet is director of the CIA. Mammy elected Biden, Warnock and Ossoff. Prissy choreographed Idle Crimes and Heavy Work.
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