C Magazine

Who can we trust? Whose words will rescue us?

When I was growing up in Spanish Town, Jamaica, people had two different types of in conducting ; you could pay in cash for something or you could trust it. “Mi madah sen’ mi fi a loaf of harddough bread and some ’til Friday.” Trust was a popular currency and was both , the way in the way that it moved through space and time to goods to sustain life. There was a rhythm and recurrence to the cycle of trust and predictability to the of payment. For these folks, the shopkeeper would just make a mental note. For others who had a harder of meeting their basic needs and had no to repayment, the shopkeeper would keep a kind of ledger. It was such an system that those who were on rock-hard times and couldn’t deliver on the promise to pay were cause for great and even charity. What was owed would be suspended indefinitely or simply forgiven, and in these folks would be given what they needed for free. However, if you were not a person of and messed up, the consequences were great. Simply, you would not be given any more ; your currency of trust could not be used again for anything or with anyone. You felt There was an that told you that you were part of an and you had it. In a rum shop where trust had been a sign warned: “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash.”

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