Broke

In the name of social movements and doing the right thing, “woke” is the woke way to declare awareness, withitness, and uneasiness for issues of inequality in inclusion, discrimination, and justice. Of course, there is little evidence of change from catch phrasing, sloganeering, or hashtagging because not much of it is grounded in how to change (e.g., Build Back Better. OK, how? Woke. Yup! Now what? End Racism. OK, how?). Liberty or Death, Me Too, Black Lives Matter, Times Up, and Deus Lo Vult are railings that allow identifying and admiring problems to give people hope that things will change much like giving people money preempts solutions for actions in need of change. Marlon Brando asking Sacheen Littlefeather (a non-Indigenous person) to show up at the Oscars and refuse his best actor award in 1973 to protest Hollywood’s treatment of Indigenous people in film and television surprised millions and remains among the celebrations most memorable moments of all time. Unfortunately, after shouting, indignation, and revisiting common in such demonstrations, not much changed in terms of representation and recognition weeks, months, years, or generations later.

A Penny Saved Is a Penny Earned, Penny Wise and Pound Foolish, Spend What Is Left After Saving and Interest on Debt Grows without Rain are words of wisdom that I often shared with our children. Like most of what I believed was good sense shared with them, advice about money was ignored which created a problem with a difficult solution.

When I was ten years old, credit cards were uncommon forms of payment and my family used cash or check for most of what they wanted or needed to avoid unwanted interest payments to people who gave them nothing and did nothing for them. When our children were ten years old, credit cards with interest rates ranging from 15-17% were widely available and credit card debt for many Americans rose as fewer and fewer of them made more than the minimum payment due (a lender’s deception designed to create continuing debt rather than fix or reduce it). When our grandchildren were ten years old, overwhelmed by unbridled credit-based spending, many Americans were surprised to find and declare that they were “broke” which has always been the woke way to declare you are out of money; and, when you are broke in any part of America, it is rough to right the ship.