Specifically, in chapter four of Of Mice and Men, Curley's wife threatens Crook with her ability to tell white men that he, a black man, did something sexually to her. It isn't directly stated as such, but it is definitely implied.
Crooks stands up to her and is immediately put back in his place by her. She says:
She turned on him in scorn. "Listen, Nigger," she said. "You know what I can do to you if you open your trap?"
And again:
She closed on him. "You know what I could do?"
Crooks reacts:
Crooks seemed to grow smaller, and he pressed himself against the wall. "Yes, ma'am."
And she finishes him off:
"Well, you keep your place then, Nigger. I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain't even funny."
Her use of the perjorative that ignorant whites use for blacks, and her reference to lynching, makes her meaning clear--all she has to do is say Crooks tried something sexual with her, and he would be hanged. He is, figuratively speaking, put back into the place society keeps him in.
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