I Am Not A Business, Man

I called my blog this because I am not a business, nor am I a man.

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I’m a genderqueer Latinx human from Portland, Oregon. I’m an abuse survivor and an activist and I do own a business, but more importantly than that, I’m passionate about business and all its associated processes.

I think a lot of people might read that I’m passionate about business and think about a certain kind of California bro who says he’s passionate about business, when what he really means is that he’s passionate about money.

I’m not here for money. Don’t get me wrong, I have been. I might be again. But what I currently care about are the day to day nuts and bolts of business ownership and operation. How does a business function? How does it serve us? In what ways does it fail to serve us? Who does it serve when it doesn’t serve us, and how do we take it back; we as in our individual selves as well as in our communities and families, both of origin and of choice, now and in the future?

These are the tall-order questions I’m not finding the answers to in the business section of the bookstore.

Commerce can transfer or it can transform. For the majority of history, it has been transferral based. That is, it was a vast lie constructed to transfer value from the very bodies of people of color, poor people and anyone designated female, into the property of wealthy white men. Sometimes quite literally. This is still the case in most of the large-scale business enterprises in the world.

But commerce can also be transformative. Work and therefore business was that for me from a very early age. It is because I was able to start my own house-cleaning business when no one would hire someone like me that I am even typing this today. It’s businesses and commerce of our own where so many similarly rejected people have found identity, prosperity and security. Sadly, we usually do this by ourselves in a vacuum.

Or at least that’s what it felt like to me. Because I had been informed by a childhood of secretes and isolation, I believed well into adulthood that I was on my own here too. Not only is that untrue, but I’ve learned that being alone makes me less effective.

I can envision a life where the structures of commerce work for us and not against us. I can see a future where the large-scale organization of labor does actually grow value for the workers, and the community, not for the oppressor who requires our poverty for his wealth.

In other words, as a socialist I feel compelled to burn this motherfucker down. But as a worker I have a higher purpose: to build this motherfucker up.

And the motherfucker I’m talking about building has nothing to do with white heteropatriarchy. I’m talking about my business, your business and the businesses, the livelihoods, even the hobbies of anybody reading this today who believes in that prosperous future. All of us working together, lifting each other, and embracing the abundance our labor can bring us when we aren’t forced to sell it short to someone who’s long-term investment is in our continued suffering.

Any business process that harms or takes advantage of the current ongoing harm to women, children, people of color, queer people, the environment, democracy, and all associated necessary living things and concepts is not a business process. That’s called a moral failing; and if it makes a bunch of money for the person who built it, that’s called being evil. If you don’t agree, this business blog is not for you. Please see all of existing business literature for your true inspiration in life.

As for me, I’m sick of slick business books packed with anecdotal evidence masquerading as data that’s actually just stories of wealthy white male privilege in action. If I have to read about one more billionaire tech-bro who started out with nothing except free rent, no debts and a six figure investment from his hard-working millionaire parents, I may just scream myself to death.

Which is why I started this blog. Enough people told me that I better get writing when I complained about the lack of material written by people like me that I finally had to come to terms with the fact that I am in a position to do this work, I believe it’s necessary work, and insofar as I believe in having a calling, I therefore have a calling to represent the rest of us in the business sphere. The people who are just trying to get by without harming themselves or anybody else, the people who were told they would never amount to anything and yet here we are with the power and the position to change things in this world. The people for whom business is personal, for whom livelihood are deeply and necessarily attached to their experience and their values. For those of us who seek transformation rather than transference. This blog is for you and we’re just getting started.

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