What is Love? (Baby don't hurt me...)

In Octavia Butler's Kindred, we see the story of how Dana Franklin, a black woman in 1976 time travel back to the antebellum South, against her will, in order to witness a "key" part of her family history.

Her ancestors were Rufus Weylin, the son of a plantation owner, and Alice Greenwood, once a free black woman, but enslaved after getting caught helping her slave husband escape. Rufus forces her to be his concubine after she is enslaved. Rufus "loving" a black woman during that time period is abnormal, although the idea of Rufus and Alice being together is partly because of Dana revealing herself to Rufus that she is a black woman in 1976 and married to a white man (at least in Rufus' head), as evidenced in this quote by Rufus: "If I lived in your time, I would've married her" (Kindred 124):

The problem with this relationship is that it is not love. In Dana's time, this is an abusive relationship, and the problem starts with Rufus' head. He thinks that since he "loves" Alice, he can be in a stable relationship. Despite Alice constantly saying no, Rufus still thinks that her say in this "relationship" doesn't really matter, because he still thinks that he is above her in two ways: he is white and male, and that is superior to being black and female. A loving relationship is consensual, mutual, the people in it should have empathy and patience. Rufus and Alice's relationship is not any of those. Alice was forced into being a concubine, and she still hates Rufus.