WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.399 I have to be honest. When you sent over this 00:00:01.399 --> 00:00:04.919 file, the Brown Equity papers, I thought we were 00:00:04.919 --> 00:00:06.639 looking at, I don't know, paint samples. Right. 00:00:06.719 --> 00:00:08.919 It sounds like an interior design pamphlet or 00:00:08.919 --> 00:00:10.679 something. Exactly. But then you open it and, 00:00:10.740 --> 00:00:14.269 wow. This is not a design brochure. It reads 00:00:14.269 --> 00:00:17.070 more like a crime scene investigation. It really 00:00:17.070 --> 00:00:19.390 is a forensic audit. The author, Nimrod Allen 00:00:19.390 --> 00:00:22.329 III, he calls it a parabolic parable. It's this 00:00:22.329 --> 00:00:26.469 story that digs into the past to explain the 00:00:26.469 --> 00:00:29.989 present. And the central claim is just. It's 00:00:29.989 --> 00:00:33.049 huge. The paper argues that the specific brown 00:00:33.049 --> 00:00:36.729 color UPS... uses pullman brown right pullman 00:00:36.729 --> 00:00:39.350 brown that it isn't just branding they call it 00:00:39.350 --> 00:00:42.630 crystallized social capital that was what extracted 00:00:42.630 --> 00:00:44.909 from black labor extracted and now they've sent 00:00:44.909 --> 00:00:47.649 a bill for it a bill for how much a very specific 00:00:47.649 --> 00:00:50.409 bill an invoice for exactly 200 billion dollars 00:00:50.409 --> 00:00:53.299 okay wait 200 billion? That, I mean, it sounds 00:00:53.299 --> 00:00:54.780 like a number you just pull out of thin air. 00:00:54.880 --> 00:00:57.159 How does an auditor even start to justify that 00:00:57.159 --> 00:00:59.020 over a color? To get the math, you have to go 00:00:59.020 --> 00:01:01.759 back to the source. So 1867, George Pullman, 00:01:01.840 --> 00:01:05.760 he invents the luxury sleeping car. But the cars 00:01:05.760 --> 00:01:08.799 don't run themselves. He needs to create an entire 00:01:08.799 --> 00:01:12.230 servant class. And he specifically targets men 00:01:12.230 --> 00:01:15.329 who were just emancipated from slavery to be 00:01:15.329 --> 00:01:17.409 his porters. And that's where this first concept 00:01:17.409 --> 00:01:19.510 comes in, the chattel discount. What is that 00:01:19.510 --> 00:01:21.670 exactly? Well, it's brutal arithmetic. In the 00:01:21.670 --> 00:01:26.189 1920s, a living wage was around $166 a month. 00:01:27.010 --> 00:01:30.310 Pullman paid these men a base wage of just $78. 00:01:31.129 --> 00:01:33.230 That's less than half of what they needed to 00:01:33.230 --> 00:01:36.049 live. Not even half. He knowingly built a business 00:01:36.049 --> 00:01:39.109 model that forced them to survive on tips. So 00:01:39.109 --> 00:01:41.430 Pullman was essentially making the American public 00:01:41.430 --> 00:01:44.129 subsidize his company's payroll. So the public 00:01:44.129 --> 00:01:46.549 pays the wages, the corporation keeps the profit. 00:01:46.969 --> 00:01:49.769 But it was more than just carrying bags, right? 00:01:49.849 --> 00:01:52.170 The report says they created the brand itself. 00:01:52.489 --> 00:01:55.750 Exactly. These men, who were often just called 00:01:55.750 --> 00:01:58.250 George, no matter their real name, they performed 00:01:58.250 --> 00:02:00.890 this immaculate emotional labor. They created 00:02:00.890 --> 00:02:03.510 the feeling of safety, of luxury. They made Brown 00:02:03.510 --> 00:02:06.709 mean trust. That's the social capital. And that's 00:02:06.709 --> 00:02:09.229 where UPS comes into the picture. Yeah, that's 00:02:09.229 --> 00:02:10.930 the part I didn't get at first, the jump from 00:02:10.930 --> 00:02:14.030 trains to delivery trucks. It happens in 1916. 00:02:14.310 --> 00:02:17.699 A guy at UPS named Charlie Soderstrom... needs 00:02:17.699 --> 00:02:20.840 a color for his fleet. And the papers argue he 00:02:20.840 --> 00:02:22.860 didn't just pick brown because it hides dirt. 00:02:23.039 --> 00:02:27.919 No, he chose Pullman Brown specifically to appropriate 00:02:27.919 --> 00:02:30.599 that entire reputation the porters had built 00:02:30.599 --> 00:02:32.360 over decades. So he's borrowing the feeling. 00:02:32.539 --> 00:02:35.159 A transference of trust. Complete transference. 00:02:35.539 --> 00:02:39.439 Then, much later, 1998, UPS trademarks the color. 00:02:39.560 --> 00:02:42.340 The report calls it enclosing the commons. They 00:02:42.340 --> 00:02:45.020 legally privatized a public reputation. And this 00:02:45.020 --> 00:02:47.270 is where it gets into... Like a spy novel for 00:02:47.270 --> 00:02:49.830 me. You don't just steal a reputation. You have 00:02:49.830 --> 00:02:52.310 to control the people who built it. This Faye 00:02:52.310 --> 00:02:54.909 Five protocol. That was their espionage machine 00:02:54.909 --> 00:02:57.250 to stop the porters from unionizing. It was a 00:02:57.250 --> 00:02:59.889 full on surveillance state. You had the spotter 00:02:59.889 --> 00:03:02.710 or the eye. The eye. Yeah. And imagine this. 00:03:02.810 --> 00:03:05.389 A passenger is just sitting there holding a hotel 00:03:05.389 --> 00:03:07.669 guidebook flat against the train window. And 00:03:07.669 --> 00:03:09.750 that's a signal. That's the signal. It told any 00:03:09.750 --> 00:03:11.629 porter who saw it, you are being watched by the 00:03:11.629 --> 00:03:14.800 company. It was about creating constant paranoia. 00:03:14.860 --> 00:03:16.719 And there were others besides the spotter, right? 00:03:16.780 --> 00:03:19.900 Oh, yeah. You had the Judas Goat, who was an 00:03:19.900 --> 00:03:22.020 internal traitor snitching on his co -workers, 00:03:22.240 --> 00:03:25.520 the O -Fay agent, basically Pinkerton detectives 00:03:25.520 --> 00:03:28.719 undercover, and then, maybe the worst one, the 00:03:28.719 --> 00:03:32.219 Whisperer. The Whisperer. that sounds ominous 00:03:32.219 --> 00:03:34.620 it was psychological warfare the whisperer's 00:03:34.620 --> 00:03:37.360 only job was to spread rumors and propaganda 00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:40.520 to destroy solidarity and the report's argument 00:03:40.520 --> 00:03:42.560 is that the money spent suppressing the labor 00:03:42.560 --> 00:03:45.060 proves how valuable that labor really was which 00:03:45.060 --> 00:03:46.979 brings us all the way back to that two hundred 00:03:46.979 --> 00:03:49.219 billion dollar invoice now that we have the history 00:03:49.979 --> 00:03:51.639 How do they get to that number? It's a three 00:03:51.639 --> 00:03:55.340 -part calculation. First, $66 billion in straight 00:03:55.340 --> 00:03:57.960 -up wage theft. That's the chattel discount compounded 00:03:57.960 --> 00:03:59.860 over time. Okay, that makes sense. Second is 00:03:59.860 --> 00:04:03.319 brand royalty. The report levies a 5 % royalty 00:04:03.319 --> 00:04:05.699 on UPS revenue for using the brown identity. 00:04:05.900 --> 00:04:08.719 That's the biggest piece. Eighty five billion. 00:04:08.840 --> 00:04:12.060 Rend on the reputation. Precisely. And the last 00:04:12.060 --> 00:04:14.520 forty nine billion is punitive damages for the 00:04:14.520 --> 00:04:16.860 Faye five surveillance for the trauma it caused. 00:04:17.079 --> 00:04:19.240 So this whole thing, the Brown equity papers, 00:04:19.379 --> 00:04:22.540 it's not a history lesson. It's an actual demand. 00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:25.579 It's a demand for what they call a Chapter 7 00:04:25.579 --> 00:04:29.519 liquidation of history. They propose using eminent 00:04:29.519 --> 00:04:33.060 domain to seize the trademark for Brown. Seize 00:04:33.060 --> 00:04:34.759 it from UPS. And return it to what they call 00:04:34.759 --> 00:04:37.019 the coin collective, the descendants of the original 00:04:37.019 --> 00:04:39.379 porters. It just flips the entire script. There's 00:04:39.379 --> 00:04:42.360 this metaphor they use, a coin. For a century, 00:04:42.459 --> 00:04:45.579 it always landed on heads for capital for the 00:04:45.579 --> 00:04:48.000 corporation. And this report is demanding that 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:50.920 the coin finally, finally be flipped to tails 00:04:50.920 --> 00:04:54.040 for labor, for the porters. It really challenges 00:04:54.040 --> 00:04:56.199 you, doesn't it, to look at one of those trucks 00:04:56.199 --> 00:04:58.519 and see something totally different. It definitely 00:04:58.519 --> 00:05:00.699 changes how I'll see the next package that shows 00:05:00.699 --> 00:05:03.720 up at my door. Does the brand belong to the person 00:05:03.720 --> 00:05:05.959 who buys the paint or the people who built the 00:05:05.959 --> 00:05:08.839 feeling? Thanks for listening to this deep dive.