This project started during a prior project and some extended reflection on a phrase that comes up in many contexts as a given… “It’s just business” or the close cousin, “I understand that this is a business.” The implications in both of these phrases is that “business” supersedes ways of thinking that might be considered normal and the right way to do things in all other non-business situations. It also implies there is generally one way of conducting business, the aforementioned non-normal and anti- “right” way of doing things.
We can then easily stretch our imagination from the recesses of current and historical society to the activities grounded in business, capitalism and profit at the expense of what is appropriate, just, and humane. With the enslavement of Africans and King Cotton, and the drug trade with addiction and violence, we see elements of business over everything. We see immediate and longer-term impacts. How do we invest in faith, hope, and possibility?
