Human Motivation Review of Related Theories

agreed to call The Great Depression as “Black Thursday” because it started on Thursday, 24 October 1929. The impacts of this depression were not only on the Whites but also on the Blacks in America. According to Darlene and Kathleen 242, in 1929, on the eve of the great depression, almost 40 percent of the black women were in the labor force. Of these numbers, 26.9 percent were agricultural workers and 35.8 percent were domestic workers. Only 5 percent of the black women held jobs in manufacturing. Fewer than 5 percent worked in white-collar jobs at the same time, 69.6 percent of employed the white women held jobs in manufacturing or white-collar work. Whenever the black and the white women were in competition for getting and keeping jobs, the white women had more chances to get that job than the black women because of racial discrimination. Moreover, August, Elliot and Francis stated that the unemployment produced by the crisis of 1929 forced the white and the black workers to lower and lower levels of the competition for the jobs and income. Although the Negro suffered greater disadvantages from the competition, it enabled the employer to play the white and the black workingmen against each other to their mutual disadvantage 180. It meant that the black workers were really exploited. Their salaries were lower than the white workers although they were in the same job level. Therefore, the Blacks were often desperate because they took lower pay. The Great Depression of the 1930s was one of the most catastrophic periods in American history. It had become a nightmare for the Americans at that time. Americans’ life in all sectors suffered economic hardship, and the African- Americans were particularly hit hard. Thousand of the Blacks left the Southern cities in 1920s for Northern cities and Midwestern communities to search for a better future for themselves and their families. They found themselves embroiled in fierce struggle for jobs, housing, education, first-class citizenship. The Blacks should struggle to break the barriers of racial discrimination. It was difficult to find good jobs, to have healthy houses, to get good education and to have the same rights in politics as the Whites. The Blacks were treated as the second-class citizens at that time. As their economic status worsened, they also increasingly faced brutal violence, race riots, and blatant racial discrimination and segregation Darlene and Kathleen 242. The Blacks were not accepted yet by the Whites’ society. They were treated badly by the Whites. In public services such as in the bus system, the Blacks were forced to give their seats to the Whites. If they refused they would be put in jail. In social aspect, the interracial marriage was forbidden. The Whites would be punished if they got married with black females Giddings 38. In education sector, the Blacks were forced to study in the segregation education. The Blacks studied in a separate place apart from the Whites. They were not permitted to study in the Whites’ public schools. In the job field, the blacks were forced to receive the lower paid jobs such as maids, laborers, watermen, etc. At that time, the Whites built a social hierarchy according to the race and sex that placed the white men in the first position, white women in the second or equal with the male and finally the black women in the last rank by which this black women’s position gave them a great risk to be exploited Hooks 53. The Whites also stereotyped themselves as being strong, powerful, superior, and have high intelligence. Additionally, the Whites stereotyped the Blacks, such as their brains were smaller, not smart on arithmetic, had lower intelligence, could not govern their self, emotional, and uncreative. These stereotypes created inferiority mental upon the Blacks and systematically decreased their roles in politic, economy, and social aspects. Furthermore, there were some bad stereotypes that were labeled to the black women: the black women were labeled as evil, treacherous, bitchy, stubborn, and hateful. In addition, these bad stereotypes were supported by Christian mythology, which placed the black women as object to be exploited, in which they would have great risk of sexual harassment where ever they went Hooks 85. Darlene and Kathleen 242 also assert that by January of 1931, more than a quarter of all Black women who lived in some cities had lost their jobs. The jobless rate for African-American women was 68.9 percent in Detroit, far higher than the white women and the same as or higher than the black men. It meant that whenever the black and the white women were in competition for getting and keeping jobs, black women were the first to be laid off because of racial discrimination e.g. a white waitress with no experience of cleaning house could take a cleaning job away from a black woman who had been doing that job for years. In the American political area, the economic depression gave negative effects to the Republican Party. The Republicans were blamed for the economic depression. The Democrat Party which proposed Franklin Roosevelt as a