Your silence will not protect you from economic tyranny.
Talking about money is essential, even when it’s uncomfortable. I’m not suggesting that you discuss exclusively personal finances. Let’s also talk about debt as a system of domination and how we cooperate in a post-growth economy. Let’s learn to disengage from predatory systems and liberate energy for collaboration.
Asking questions about money opens new possibilities.
“Money-Wise Women” guest Hadassah Damien wants you to break money silence. She is an award-winning artist, progressive technologist, and an educator at Ride Free Fearless Money. She advocates financial resilience for marginalized populations, including women, LGBTQ people, creatives, and people of color.
Systemic oppression creates cycles of poverty. The profit mandate of corporations disregards basic human needs, such as access to clean water, healthy food, and medical care.
The Forbes 400 list of wealthiest individuals owns an increasingly large portion of the world’s assets. In 2015, these four hundred people have as much wealth as sixteen million African-American households plus five million Latino households. Institutionalized oppression founded on the belief of white male supremacy must be dismantled.
What does economic justice look like in America?
When Hadassah asks her clients to discuss this question, she evokes curiosity and creativity. Many of them are unsure what to do about their student loans. Eleven percent of federal student loans are in default. Hadassah defaulted on her student loans many years ago, and was able to get her credit score back up over 800. Listen to this episode and hear how she turned her life around and began educating others about how to become financially empowered.
Building strong networks of trusted relationships builds true wealth, even within an extractive economy. Join Hadassah’s newest course, Partners Make Peace and Plans with Money Toolkit for 10% off by using our code MONEYWISE. Have money conversations that matter. Leverage your financial power through making decisions in alignment with your values. You are voting daily with your dollars, and, as Audre Lorde said, “Revolution is not a one-time event.”
Hadassah Damien is a Brooklyn-based, award-winning artist, progressive technologist, and educator at Ride Free Fearless Money, her iconoclastic blog and finance classes. She offers the online course Partners Make Peace and Plans with Money Toolkit and an eBook, Guide to Talk About Money in a Relationship. The focus is how we can be better at using money around and with the people we love, and how we can invite them to be better to us. Her mission is to stabilize creative communities by empowering folks’ relationship to their money, and to help people hack capitalism. Get money resources at: http://www.ridefreefearlessmoney.com