Further along, when Paulus and Thebedi are alone in the farmhouse, she has to “get away before the house servants, who knew her, came in at dawn” (lines 98-99) because she must not be discovered while sleeping with a white man.
When the baby is born, we can see that Njabulo (Thebedi's husband) accepts the child (“Njabulo made no complaint.” (line 121)) even though it is obvious it is white (“floss” (line 116) ; “did not quickly grow darker as most African babies do” (lines 114-115) ; “the […] eyes it opened were grey flecked with yellow. Njabulo was the […] colour that has always been called black” (lines 117-118)). He even “bought from the Indian store a cellophane-windowed pack containing a pink plastic bath […] for Thebedi's baby.” (lines 121-124). This shows that even though the baby is half white half black, he considers it partly his and not Paulus’s. He is very tolerant regarding the situation.
On line 129, “For the first time since he [ Paulus ] was a boy he came straight into the kraal (small village where the 'natives' live)”. This shows racial division in the way that after the white children get a little older, they just stop going near where the black people live.
Further on, when Thebedi “greeted him with […] the respectful bob with which she was accustomed to acknowledge in the presence of his father or mother” (line 134-136), this shows that the black South Africans are entirely submissive to the white people.
However, we could argue that some characters such as Paulus aren't totally racist. Paulus is not fundamentally racist in the way that he has a black girlfriend, Njabulo is not racist because he accepts the child (though we could argue that he doesn't really have the choice) and the judge and jury actually listen to Thebedi and her story whereas they could have ignored the case since it was 'only' a black baby.
In this story it is not so much a question of racism on the part of individuals. The death of the baby is a desperate act by Paulus (“ 'I feel like killing myself' ” (line 161-162)); “He struggled for a moment with a grimace of tears, anger and self-pity.” (line 153)). This act is prompted by his being in an impossible situation deliberately created by the apartheid society which was institutionally racist and made it impossible for the infant itself to exist and for such a couple to live together.
The Gold Cadillac is a story by Mildred Taylor about a northern black family who buys an expensive car, then decides to try to go in the rural South with it. Contrarily to Country Lovers, the racism doesn't appear until long after the beginning. We aren't even told that the family is black until line 166 : “ 'Not much those folks hate more'n to see a northern Negro coming down there in a fine car,' said Mr. Pondexter.” However we can almost guess when the whole family “stops” (line 153-157).
When the father announces he wants to drive his brand new Cadillac to the South, he says : “I paid good money for this car […] That gives me a right to drive it where I please. Even down in Mississippi.” (line 160-161), which shows that the southern white people wouldn't tolerate a black man driving an expensive car. This is a clear demonstration of racism. The uncles and the neighbours think that the white people of the rural South will figure that Wilbert (the father) would be showing off in his Cadillac (“they'll figure you coming down uppity” line 167-168). This again shows the intolerance of the white community towards the blacks.
Wilbert's daughter 'lois, the narrator of the story, doesn't understand why so many people are trying to keep her father from going down South with the car (“I didn't understand why they didn't want my father to drive that car south. It was his.” (lines 169-170)). This shows she is totally unaware of what racism is and of what it means.
One of the uncles warns Wilbert that “We might've fought a war to free people overseas, but we're not free here! Man, those white folks down south'll lynch you soon's they look at you. You know that!” (lines 171-173) meaning that even after World War Two, the afro-Americans don't have equal rights and that he might get killed taking that risk.
Although the father wants to go alone at first, the whole family says they'll accompany him to “watch out for each other” (line 197), which means there is danger where they're going. Then all the women go and cook while the girl is thinking that they're preparing a huge picnic (“It was like a grand, grand picnic” (line 194)) and is very excited (“We could hardly wait to start” (line 195)).
After they have left home, the father warns his two daughters that they must not speak in the presence of white people (“Now from here on, whenever we stop and there're white people around, I don't want either of you to say a word.” (line 205-206)). The little girls don't have a clue why they're not allowed to speak (“we didn't truly understand why” (line 208)).
Then, when they enter Kentucky (considered a southern state), they start to see signs which say “WHITE ONLY, COLOURED NOT ALLOWED” on drinking fountains, restaurants, ice cream parlours, hotels and motels, hamburger stands (lines 210-215). When she asks her father what they meant and he answered that they meant “we could not drink from the water fountains […] we couldn't stop and sleep in the motels […] we couldn't stop to eat in the restaurants” (lines 218-220), she understands why they brought such an enormous 'picnic', because they couldn't eat in the restaurants because of the racist attitudes of the white owners (lines 219-221).
Then as soon as they reach the Mississippi state line, “a police car came up behind us” (line 225). The policemen ask whose car the Cadillac is and when the father says “It's mine” (line 229) they call him a “liar” (line 230) and accuse him of stealing it (“You stole this car” (line 230)). This is a clear demonstration that the police force was prejudiced against black people and that they had trouble believing that a black man could own such a fine car. These policemen probably also had quotas to respect and therefore they would try to arrest anyone for almost any reason! Then they get him in the police car and they drive to the closest police station (line 241). When they bring Wilbert into the police station and obviously find out that it is really his car, they fine him for speeding (a pretext) and eventually let him out.
After this, the father decides to bring the car to one of his relatives (line 284) and swap vehicles because he finally admits “its not worth the risk” (line 286).
Then in the paragraph going from lines 300 to 309, the father gives his daughter a crash course of reality, saying the cause of racism among the white people was due to “the fact that black people had once been forced to be slaves” (lines 301-302), saying “it had to do with our skins being coloured” (line 302). He ends with a description of what he hopes the future to be in terms of racism (“won't be any signs” (line 307) ; “the police won't stop us just because of the colour of our skins and we're driving in a gold Cadillac with northern plates” (lines 307-309)). The story ends when the father eventually sells his golden Cadillac and with the little girl saying that she “wouldn't soon forget the signs, the policemen, or my fear. I would remember that ride in the gold Cadillac all my life” (line 345-end).
As a conclusion we can say that in Country Lovers, the racism is mentioned right from the beginning and throughout the whole of the story while in The Gold Cadillac, it is a little better concealed since we only learn the family is black on line 166 and that is also when we find out the story is about racism.
The tone in both stories is also quite different. While in Country Lovers, the tone is tranquil and sweet (love) as well as sad (the ending), in The Gold Cadillac, it can be joyful (the picnic), scary (the night in the woods), celebratory (arrival of the father in the Cadillac at the beginning) or serious (the discussion about whether or not to go South with the car). The characters are also different in the two stories, one being a big, extended, black northern family (The Gold Cadillac), the other one being a young black girl in a farm in South Africa and a young white boy, son of the farm-owner.
We can also compare the voice in both stories, one in the first person (The Gold Cadillac), the other narrated by a character exterior to the story.
Racism in these two stories affects the characters in many but different ways. For example, the family is affected internally by the arrival of the Cadillac and the decision to drive it south while racism manages to break the bond between Thebedi and Paulus (last declaration of Thebedi (lines 214-215).
In Country Lovers, in fact, at no point do we see a specific character behaving in a racist way since the racism is built into the society itself, whereas in The Gold Cadillac, the racism is expressed by individuals such as the policemen and not as much part of the society as in Country Lovers.
