Rumor has it knockthehustle.com is going live this week. Here's an excerpt from a monthly feature called "THE HUSTLE OF THE MONTH," which is all about constructs and paradigms that have gone way too far. Check in every month for a fresh HOTM.
THE [PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY] HUSTLE
“I can’t do nothing for you man—
I’m busy trying to do for me.”
—Flava Flav
Personal Responsibility. Might be the biggest cliché in modern pop culture. Personal Responsibility used to be about fighting for control of your destiny. Living your life instead of being a bystander Ownership... But at some point, Personal Responsibility became one of the great modern hustles running. Personal Responsibility is my generation’s Caveat Emptor: Buyer Beware, Seller Amoral.
Recently in Chicago a huge mass of (mainly black) parents, lead by Rev. James Meeks, blasted Mayor Daley for Chicago’s failing inner city schools. They claimed the mayor, the school board, teachers’ union, etc just don’t care enough about inner city (lower income black) students to provide them with the quality education that suburban (think: white) students get.
Others (mainly white) promptly defended the mayor and the school system by teeing off on the parents. Their contention was if these parents were more involved in their kids’ education (i.e. raised their kids to care more about education than rap music, made sure they were in class when they were supposed to be, attended PTA meetings, etc.) then their kids would get a better education.
In short, “Stop blaming the white man and take Personal Responsibility.”
In recent months, several multi-billion verdicts against Philip Morris and other Big Tobacco leaders were overturned. The courts reasoned that while consumers may well have gotten sick from the cigs, consumers have known the risks of cigarettes for decades, if not generations. So short of blatant negligence or intentional fraud in marketing, Phillip Morris and crew shouldn’t be liable for consumers’ choices.
And again, Personal Responsibility was the phrase that paid.
As we approach the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Personal Responsibility continues to lace the ongoing debates surrounding disaster preparedness and evacuation plans, and the continual rebuilding efforts.
Most still say the folks that didn’t get out simply didn’t want to get out. And despite tax increases for all manner of beefed up homeland security, extra police, fire, hospital, and assorted governmental sponsored safety and disaster programs government officials at every level are telling everyone coast to coast that in the event of a terrorist attack or natural disaster you and your family are your own first line of defense; and afterwards you alone are responsible for getting yourself back on your own feet and your lives back on track.
The Personal Responsibility Hustle strikes again. (God forbid that any elected officials should actually do what officials were elected to do.)
In 2005 alone, marketers spent over $245 billion (that’s Bill Gates’ life savings times 6) convincing consumers just like you to buy all kinds of goodies ‘n’ not-so-goodies. Why? Because marketing works. Each year we get clients to re-up because we know our game is tight. Yet, when folks get addicted to cigarettes, get obese from corn syrup, fast-food, etc, or when their hair falls out from follicle frying hair care products, or go deaf from iPod overdose, we as marketers go dumber than Reality TV shows with hyphy soundtracks…
“We ain’t do nothin’! Nobody told ‘em to eat all that. Nobody told ‘em to play MP3’s all day. Nobody told ‘em to blow their cash and self-esteem on brand names. Nobody told ‘em to get all those credit cards. They bought that stuff on their own. If someone tells you to jump in the lake, you gonna do it?”
The Personal Responsibility Hustle strikes again.
But for my money, the best part of the Personal Responsibility Hustle is this: By legal definition, corporations are actually people. That’s right. It goes like this:
The way corporations were birthed like so [Cliffs’ Notes style]: Back in the day (mid-1700s) when you launched a company, your crew wrote up a charter—a formal declaration—which had to be approved by your village, city, state, etc. In it, you laid out what your corporation was all about—personnel, chosen endeavor, etc.
Once the charter was approved, you were in business but only under the terms of your charter. So if your company was chartered to build houses in Missouri, you couldn’t just haul off and build roads in Illinois—not without fresh paperwork, no matter what the free market was telling you to do.
Corporations were servants of the state. Violate your charter (do business you weren’t licensed to, fail to pay taxes, etc.) and your corporation could be dissolved on the spot. It was a nice way to keep companies in check and guard against some of the corporate rap that goes on today.
But then corporations got sheisty. Then they got lawyers. And the lawsuits for company rights began. And around 1880-ish, company lawyers started citing this somewhat obscure province known as the Fourteenth Amendment, which, among other things helped end slavery.
Now I say “among other things,” because the crux of the Fourteenth Amendment wasn’t about slavery, but was really about property rights—what constituted property and under what ground it could be confiscated, by whom, etc. Abolitionists and freedom fighters declared that human beings couldn’t be property; ergo…
But this time, companies started screaming oppression and claiming that they needed be “emancipated” from the government’s regulatory shackles. They flatly clamed they were economic slaves. And if a bunch of barely 5/5ths Negroes could get free, there was no way in hell corporations—groups of fine, upstanding Anglo white men out to pursue their happiness—should be anything less than free to fill their coffers by any means…
So they sued.
And sued and sued. And sued some more. All the way to the US Supreme Court. Sued so many times they had assigned seats there. Now dig this:
“Of the 150 cases involving the Fourteenth Amendment heard by the Supreme Court up to the Plessy v. Ferguson case in 1896 which established the legal standing of ‘separate but equal,’ 15 involved blacks and 135 involved business entities. The scope of the Fourteenth Amendment to secure the political rights of former slaves was so restricted by the Supreme Court that blacks won only one case. The expansive view of the Fourteenth Amendment that comes down to Constitutional Law classes today is the result of corporations using the Fourteenth Amendment as a shield against regulation. Ultimately the Plessy decision left Jim Crow laws, state laws discriminating against blacks, in place because of doctrines developed in those corporate shield cases.” (1)
Now in case you’re wondering how this relates to the Personal Responsibility Hustle: By law—upheld ad nausea by the US Supreme Court—corporations are actual persons. Therefore “personal responsibility” applies to companies, not just individual consumers.
So just as the cigarette consumer is personally responsible for toking the cancer stick, the cigarette manufacturer, marketer and even retailer share some responsibility for selling said lung bomb. Just as the 3-Big-Mac-a-day piglet is responsible for their 300lb frame, MickeyD’s actually has some culpability in selling them, particularly since they’ve only recently made efforts to go above and beyond fine print to disclose the health consequences.
So next time someone swears that an individual should foot the bill for the sins of a corporate or governmental entity’s screw-ups, malice, indifference, greed, just doing business, etc. Just remind them that under the law businesses are people, too. (Then think about calling a lawyer who’s well verse in constitutional law.)
“You’re on your own—Personal Responsibility.
See you at the crossroads.”
Love,
Jesus.”
—Revelations 23:1 (2)
Hadji Williams is author of KNOCK THE HUSTLE: How to save your Job and Your Life from Corporate America. author@knockthehustle.com
1. “The Hijacking of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Hammerstrom, Doug. (2002)
2. Calm down, there are only 22 chapters in the book of Revelations. This is sarcasm.
That’s all for this month. Check back in a few weeks for a fresh H.O.T.M.
