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History, Poetry, Security

Were the WWII RAF Dambusters Racist?

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Yes. Yes, they were.

The following poem published in 1933 by Una Marson (celebrated war-time broadcaster in the British Ministry of Information, and a noted poet), can be found in the British Library:

Source: The Keys, Una. M. Marson, The League of Coloured Peoples, July 1933. Copyright: By permission of the British Library Board

She warns very conclusively, years before WWII, that without any doubt the N-word was considered racist and harmful.

So is friendly fire still fire? Yes, the Dambusters (RAF 617 Squadron in WWII) clearly embraced racism.

Privileged indulgence by whites abusing positions of authority seems to be what happened in the case of the Dambusters’ leader naming his dog a racist slur, basically after 200 years of a word being widely known as harmful to Blacks.

Even worse, the Dambusters indulged themselves with a racist slur as a codeword and group “mascot” despite its known direct harm to the “RAF ethos” then and into the future.

It’s been a continual problem for Dambusters’ story-tellers to dance around such obvious and unnecessary self-harm.

Back in 2011 the BBC reported that the Dambuster “mascot”, a black Labrador named the N-word, in a movie produced by Peter Jackson would be instead called “Digger“:

You can go to RAF Scampton and see the dog’s grave and there he is with his name, and it’s an important part of the film. The name of the dog was a code word to show that the dam had been successfully breached. In the film, you’re constantly hearing ‘N-word, N-word, N-word, hurray’ and Barnes Wallis is punching the air. But obviously that’s not going to happen now. So Digger seems OK, I reckon.

The BBC goes on to say that decision reflected a fact of a larger story to tell where a dog’s real name is a tiny, unessential detail.

“The film is not about the dog. My big concern would be if they watered down what the Dam Busters had achieved.”

Watered down? Pun not intended, I’m sure.

If the N-word is used in its full form, then historians must use context and talk about a it being a proven known wrong in 1943. Historians also must address why the N-word was allowed. Otherwise by using it without acknowledging the harm, it’s erasing the Black experience and perpetuating racism.

The Independent in 2018, seven years after the BBC went with “Digger”, reported how screenings of the original 1955 movie were to leave the N-word intact because they also would prominently warn potential viewers of offensive language.

…”send a clearer warning to parents that the film contains discriminatory language of a nature that will be offensive to many”. The name has previously been censored for TV broadcasts, while some American versions have used dubbing to edit the dog’s name to Trigger.

Someone was giving new meaning to Americans being Trigger happy. Pun not intended, I’m sure.

Digger, Trigger… Vigor, Rigor, Bigger. Why would any codewords for anything have to be accurate for retelling the main story? Unless there’s a story behind the codeword, they were literally meant to have no association so nothing is lost by replacing them.

Look at it this way, does anyone really care at all what the codewords in the left column are? Change them arbitrarily and nothing happens because they are codewords.

Codeword Meaning
Cooler Callsign for Operation Chastise
Pranger Attack Mohne dam. German word for “pinch badly” and name for a medieval torture device
N-word Mohne dam breached, divert to Eder
Dinhgy Eder dam breached, divert to Sorpe
Tulip Cooler 2 take over Mohne, Cooler 4 take over Eder
Gilbert Attack last-resort targets
Mason Return to Base
Goner Upkeep release status (1-7) with results (8-10) on target (A-F). For example Goner 1-8-A is failed to explode, no breach of Mohne, whereas Goner 7-10-A is exploded on contact, large breach of Mohne

It shouldn’t matter what a dog’s name was in the Dambuster narrative (a narrative that really should only be about “convincing people on both sides that the Allies were winning“) unless you also want to talk about systemic racism in the RAF at that time… which tends to undermine “winning” narratives and get lots of attention from neo-Nazis.

Let me just pause for a minute to acknowledge the RAF did in fact have Black airmen, and wasn’t nearly as racist as the Army and Navy.

There are all kinds of upsides and positive Black stories that can be heard about the RAF. Sorry, Nazis, don’t even try to pretend the RAF shouldn’t have humiliated you the way they did.

Back to the story, if Peter Jackson’s film crew had kept the original racist word, they also should address the racism with far more that just basic context setting.

One can’t simply insert the N-word and pretend like all the RAF racism at the time in 1943 doesn’t also come along with it. Going into the known racism of the RAF (could RAF be read as Racist AF, like were the Dambusters RAF?) would have been a very different (arguably much better) movie. Imagine watching a movie that admits both British and Nazis were racists but Blacks were fighting on the British side because they hated Nazism so much more!

But I don’t know if that’s the movie Jackson would have wanted to make.

Using the N-word also means doing far more to set context than tossing out “offensive language” warnings, or even trying to say “you can go to RAF Scampton and see the dog’s grave” to learn more.

I understand such a “go look it up” sentiment, as it’s low cost to drive interested viewers to some other production team. Indeed anyone who needed to see an original dog name used to be able to visit the grave, meaning that tangential detail could be found elsewhere and need not be in the movie.

However, such a diversion tactic no longer will fly given that Sky News reports today even RAF Scampton has removed the N-word from the gravestone.

It is understood the decision was taken in order to not give prominence to an offensive word that goes against the modern RAF’s ethos.

I think that’s great. The N-word is removed as it’s acknowledged to be harmful (on a base scheduled to be closed next year).

Removal of racism clearly was the right decision by the RAF. However, note how Sky News is itself making a very subtle racist mistake in its reporting.

It really should have concluded that sentence with “…an offensive word that goes against the RAF’s ethos.” Saying it goes against the modern ethos is problematic because it means Sky News is passively excusing a legacy of racism in the RAF.

Fortunately the BBC does a better job and reports it the proper way:

The RAF said it did not want to give prominence to an offensive term that went against its ethos.

Right. RAF should take down the distraction and when it comes up explain that unfortunate choices were made, explaining why those choices were mistakes and that they are being corrected. It’s these acts of admitting fault and fixing racism that makes the RAF so much superior to the Nazis.

Everyone should be able to agree it was clearly and widely known to be derogatory after the 1800s, as the definitive book “Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word” explains:

We do know… that by the end of the first third of the nineteenth century, nigger had already become a familiar and influential insult. […] For many whites in positions of authority, however, referring to blacks as niggers was once a safe indulgence. […] Given whites’ use of nigger, it should come as no surprise that for many blacks the N-word has constituted a major and menacing presence that has sometimes shifted the course of their lives.

“A safe indulgence” by “whites in positions of authority” seems exactly to be what has happened in the case of the Dambusters naming their dog a racist slur 200 years after it was known to wrong Blacks.

The African American Registry explains how change does indeed come slowly for those in positions of authority:

No matter what its origins, by the early 1800s, it was firmly established as a derogative name. In the 21st century, it remains a principal term of White racism, regardless of who is using it. […] In 2003, the fight to correct the shameful availability of this word had positive results. Recently Kweisi Mfume, president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), gave a speech at Virginia Tech. There everyone was informed that a landmark decision was made with the people at Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Recognizing their error, beginning with the next edition, the word nigger will no longer be synonymous with African Americans in their publication.

While the word obviously has been harmful this whole time across two centuries, some still try to erase that fact of history by falsely presenting the Dambuster racism as innocent of motive.

It was not innocent, and it was not a different time.

To be fair, I will say that during WWII general British society was less racist towards black soldiers than the British military was. Also I will say British society was definitely far less racist than the American military:

…when US military authorities demanded that the town’s pubs impose a colour bar, the landlords responded with signs that read: “Black Troops Only”.

British civilians were defending Black American troops against racism in the American military. Think about that for a minute.

But none of that changes the fact that racism was a huge problem in Britain and America, and even more of a problem in the military.

Consider how a 1964 campaign slogan used the N-word, because it was so harmful, as a weapon to attack Britain. That’s right, a politician won his election by openly flouting the N-word like a Dambuster would in “the most racist election” he could.

This was just 20 years after the Dambusters raid:

Conservative MP, Peter Griffiths, had been elected in the previous year’s general election on the slogan “If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour.”

If anyone says that Dambuster dog name was neutral and at a “different time”, ask them how it ended up in a very public 1964 hate campaign.

Griffiths openly acknowledged his use of the term was racist. You can’t say 1943 was such a different time from 1968; those who used the term in World War II military campaigns then would have been voters in their 50s.

Dr. Harold Arundel Moody, a Jamaican-born physician in London who campaigned against racial prejudice established the League of Coloured Peoples in 1931, would never had his life story described as “Negro Victory” if there hadn’t been so much racism during those years.

More to the point, who were the Dambusters really targeting when they grotesquely indulged in racism by messaging bomb drops with the N-word over and over and over again?

By 1975 we can look at an episode of the popular Fawlty Towers comedy on BBC had their military veteran character Major Gowen (played by Ballard Berkeley) repeatedly saying the N-word.

The Major says: ‘The strange thing was that throughout the morning she kept referring to the Indians as n*****s.’ He adds: ‘ “No, no, no, no,” I said, “n*****s are West Indians, these people are w**s”. ‘ “No, no, no,” she said, “all cricketers are n*****s”.’

So you can plainly see a BBC comedy in 1975 was highlighting, as I am here today, how the N-word in Britain was treated by the “old fossil” military types — a hateful word used for a very long time.

That is why by 1943, during the raid that gave the Dambusters their famous name, there should be no question the N-word was known to be racist, as it has been widely documented widely as such before and after.

Its use in fact undermined the fight against Nazism — like dropping bombs all over Black neighborhoods of the British Empire — as friendly-fire that was entirely unnecessary and easily prevented.

Do you know what doesn’t undermine the fight against Nazism? Admitting the word was racist at the time and condemning its use.

Again, friendly fire is still fire.

The best case for the Dambusters would be claiming weak leadership — despite public condemnations of racism — as they allowed unfortunate wrongs against their own citizens to continue unchallenged; even that doesn’t change a fundamental fact the N-word was known harmful and use of it by the Dambusters means RAF has to deal with a legacy of racism.

British racism goes bigger than just this one word, of course, given how the N-word is a reference to slavery in the military of a country that used to enforce slavery practices. Keep in mind how a push for abolition of slavery is as old as slavery itself, and the 1700s was when the British experienced mass condemnation (thus leading to its widespread abolition in the early 1800s).

We can’t say let’s erase the Black experience and instead comfort whites taking the immoral luxury of perpetuating slavery through it’s associated language. The context of early 1800s abolitionism doesn’t do anything to excuse the RAF in a position of power and privilege indulging in racism.

Leaving the N-word prominently displayed without context legitimizes the wrongdoing.

Quite clearly there was racism in British ranks, and quite clearly it should be treated as such if their racism is repeated in the open. We even have documentation of the problem from those who suffered it.

…In 1939, the peacetime recruiting regulations…restricted entry into the RAF to men of “pure European descent”. Under the Act, all “men of colour” were automatically debarred…. […] …a Guyanese man…in 1941 was recruited by the RAF. Grant wanted to be a fighter pilot…. Years later after being shown Air Ministry records researched by Roger Lambo be was to painfully learn of the racism with informal Air Ministry policies.

And again, even more to the point:

As Robert Murray, who left Georgetown, Guiana to join the RAF, recalls: “I never heard of racism until I got to Britain.” …there is now a desire to celebrate the achievements of those such as Flight Sergeant Jimmy Hyde, the much-decorated Trinidadian piolt, there has been little recognition of the isolation they felt in the RAF. […] There is an official RAF photograph of Hyde, from 132 Squadron, with his Spitfire and holding “Dingo”, the squadron commander’s pet dog. Hyde, while forcing a smile, looks uneasy: it is unclear which one is the mascot.

Source: Caribbean Air Crew in the RAF – Imperial War Museum (IWM) Reference CH11978

However, rather than go too far down the complicated paths to explain motives for systemic racism in the military, we really should keep focus on consequences here.

Given the term was known harmful from the 1800s onward, and given that most Blacks who heard the term would consider it harmful, with many first-person confirmations of being wronged, historians must conclude:

POSTING OR USING THE DOG’S NAME WITHOUT RACISM CONTEXT ERASES THE BLACK EXPERIENCE.

Perhaps this clarity to me comes from unique experience that makes the right answer more obvious versus those casually looking at the problem?

I spent many hours deep in the UK government’s military archives for my graduate degree in history from the London School of Economics. In those papers and secret memos I found an excessive amount of racism of an almost unbearable level, especially in the war-time Colonial Office correspondence on the North African campaigns (as you might imagine from the office name).

The intolerance and hate is all still there if you want to open the folders, but it most certainly should not be paraded or celebrated. And if someone pulled that racism from the archive and built a gravestone or monument to it for celebration, I would ask them frankly why they are trying to erase history (ignore the Black experience) by trying to elevate and apologize for a particular racist tangent.

And here’s a sad example of a historian of Dambusters who fails miserably at this. He both acknowledges the catastrophe of the N-word and also falls victim to the false trope of “said things differently then”. From the 2020 edition of Operation Chastise.

…I have been repeatedly asked whether it is an embarrassment to acknowledge the name of Gibson’s dog, which became a wirelessed codeword for the breaching of the Mohne. A historian’s answer must be: no more than the fact that our ancestors hanged…and imprisoned homosexuals. They did and said things differently then. It would be grotesque to omit Nigger from a factual narrative merely because the word is rightly repugnant to the twenty-first-century ears. […] Yet in the twenty-first century it also seems essential to confront… the enormity of the horror that the unthinking fliers unleashed upon a host of innocents.

This is a clumsy section of the book, which has to be read very carefully. He is saying he leaves in the N-word as evidence of a wrong. Does he call it out effectively as a wrong?

No, it appears he gives far more careful consideration to the wrongs the RAF may have committed against Nazis, than the wrongs against Blacks (or against homosexuals) in the RAF who were fighting against those Nazis.

Note the UK after the war coldly tried and executed their own war hero Alan Turing, for example, simply because he was gay. That narrative is almost never told correctly, given how the government today tries to elevate his name in spite of unjustly killing him.

Interesting data point: given this author of the 2020 Operation Chastise book says historians ought not to omit references to the dog’s name, he makes only 2 mentions in all its pages. And I am sure if he had gone to zero mentions, it would have done nothing to change his narrative.

If anyone believes that erasing history is harmful, then they should see removing the N-word is a restoration project (like cleaning graffiti or pulling down fences). Don’t believe anyone who claims the N-word was acceptable at the time, or that it didn’t get a reaction from those it slighted. Again, as I can’t say this enough, presentation of it without context erases the Black experience.

To post such a word believing it to be “factual” without thinking of its factual consequences, is an act of erasure. It erases history and continues to promote severe and lasting wrongs, by failing to acknowledge mistakes as such. The RAF is right to correct the mistake, acknowledge the bigger story and fuller history, and move the racist name to where it can be studied appropriately for being racist.

As Randall Kennedy, the Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School and author of the definitive history of the N-word, puts it:

“Given the power of ‘nigger’ to wound, it is important to provide a context within which presentation of that term can be properly understood.

What would context look like for the 1943 Operation Chastise? That’s fairly easy to answer.

The BBC three years earlier on May 16, 1940 responded to an angry letter and issued a public apology for its use of the N-word on air, acknowledging it as “sincerely regretted”.

My attention has been drawn to the fact that one of your announcers, when interpreting some records on the 11th inst., made use of the offensive term ‘nigger’. There is no need for me to remind you that this is one of the unfortunate relics of the days of slavery, vexatious to present day Africans and West Indians, and an evidence of incivility on the part of its user. I hope, sir, as a public corporation, you will take some steps to repair the damage done. I shall be glad to be advised as to what steps you take so that I may be able to inform my Committee accordingly.

======

From the Director, Secretariat of BBC to the President of the League. 16/5/40
Following my earlier letter, I find that our announcer was at fault. The point raised on your letter is fully appreciated, and is one which the BBC is at pains to keep constantly in mind. It was unfortunately overlooked on this occasion, and a reminder on the subject is being given to announcers. I hope that your Committee will accept the BBC’s apology for this slip, which is sincerely regretted.

Speaking of the BBC, don’t forget the beginning of this post was a contextual reference from one of their own broadcasters ten years before the Dambusters existed.

So I have to ask, after all this…

Have you heard of Una Marson?

Every time someone falsely claims the N-word was somehow accepted, or normal for 1943 in the RAF, they actively are erasing her from history despite her very prominent role and the Black community opposition to the term during that exact time.

Spitfire Pilot Flight Sergeant Colin A. Joseph of San Fernando, Trinidad – pictured here after having recently shot down 2 enemy aircraft. On New Year’s Eve 1944, he was shot down and killed by friendly fire from American anti-aircraft defences whilst on patrol over Belgium and is buried in Hotton War Cemetery, Belgium.

Update: April 2021 a reader has sent me “The untold story of the RAF’s black Second World War fliers over Europe“, a fascinating look back at the amazing stories of Black RAF who had been erased while Dambuster’s racist story was heavily promoted.

…few people are aware of the important contribution made by 500 RAF aircrew recruited from the Caribbean and West Africa. Overcoming the legacy of the official British Colour Bar to serve over Europe as pilots, navigators, flight engineers and air gunners, these men were pioneers in the truest sense. After suffering a loss rate of more than 30% and, in some cases, incarceration as black PoWs in Nazi Germany, the men returned to their countries of origin and were lost from the historical record.

Not only were Black contributions lost from the historical record, though…. When references were made to them in movies, there was such disbelief by racists that some tried to protest against the record of real veterans!

…the famous Great Escape. There’s a black character in that film and everybody said, ‘This is just ridiculous, political correctness, where have they got a black character?’. There was actually a black prisoner in Stalag Luft III. So that character’s based on Cy Grant.

Compare that to the controversy over removing the N-word from Dambusters. Following that, here’s a comment about racism during WWII that is spot on, calling out in just a few lines what I spent many paragraphs trying to say above:

The British official policy, written policy, stated that only British-born men of British-born parents, of pure European descent, could receive offers as commissions in any of His Majesty’s armed services. This of course also disqualified South Africans, Australians, anybody who was not British-born and of pure European descent. I mean, not a lot to choose from between that statement and what we were fighting against in Germany, to be honest, other than the fact that there were no camps, but the mind-set behind the policy was very similar.

It’s all a fantastic read, with many very insightful stories of Black RAF airmen during war. This is perhaps one of the best:

Lincoln Lynch, DFM, tailgunner from Jamaica, who served with 102 Squadron, shot down a Messerschmitt night fighter on his first operational flight. He was a gentleman. He shot the night fighter’s engine with his machine guns, then he realised it was on fire and he then held fire while the German pilot and his crewmen climbed out and jumped off the back of the aeroplane and then he resumed firing and shot the rest of the aeroplane out of the sky. So [he was] quite a nice man.

Speaking of the meaning of words, what a name. Lincoln. Lynch.

Sergeant Lincoln Orville Lynch DFM, a West Indian air gunner serving with RAF No 102 Squadron, photographed wearing his flying kit by the rear turret of his Halifax at RAF Pocklington, February 1944.

Lincoln Lynch after WWII moved to America and became a strong civil rights advocate, heavily involved in New York politics and even a leading voice of opposition to the Vietnam War. If you haven’t heard of him, please do read his story.

History, Security

“Could Better Technology Protect Privacy when a Crisis Requires Enhanced Knowledge”

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I gave this presentation for the Atlantic Council and Accenture. From the Atlantic Council site:

On Wednesday, 17 June 2020, the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center and Accenture held the second episode of the jointly presented Data Salon Series, featuring a presentation from Mr. Davi Ottenheimer, Vice President of Trust and Digital Ethics at Inrupt, that prompted animated discussion among participants about the nature of privacy, consent, and responsibility. The event focused on how our understanding of privacy and its preservation affects our ability to temporarily compromise it in the interest of addressing crises. These issues are particularly relevant to the ongoing pandemic, and their intersections with other topics—integrating different cultural priorities and expectations of privacy, ensuring data is truly representative of a diverse population, and examining the nuanced relationships between privacy, knowledge, and power—are especially timely.

Check out their full write-up on my presentation as they kindly have posted the survey results, slides as well as this recording of the talk with Q&A

History, Security

American Frontier History is Poisoned by Losers of Civil War

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Information warfare in America has continued almost non-stop since the late 1700s when abolition of slavery began to expand around the world. There has been a concerted effort by white supremacists to erase the reality of who really did what, where and when.

One of the most dramatic expressions of this is the mythology of the “frontiersman” of America. I say mythology because, truth be told, there were very blurred groups in the 1800s who drove western expansion far more than only white men.

The harsh frontier was largely explored by those furthest from the mainstream culture (seeking new lives and smashing a glass ceiling such as entrepreneurial women, freed slaves, mixed-races, convicts). This should come as common sense, since you can imagine who would take the most risks when there was no guarantee of rewards.

“The Revenant” story is a good example of this, as the true story was a very diverse group of non-whites and outcasts. A wall-street banker bored with his job picked the story up and rewrote it as a very loaded white man against nature narrative, which unfortunately was widely read and turned into a disgusting movie full of disgusting falsehoods and degrading imagery (innocent white man has to battle against non-whites, animals, women… to survive and conquer).

I assure you white men in comfortable settings didn’t say they’d throw it all away just to expand and explore new spaces for the sake of it. Think about motivations and you can see white men would go when the odds were more in their favor, which in fact usually meant many other people doing the work for them — they didn’t play fair.

It didn’t always mean white men shirked hard work. One example of that is Ulysses S. Grant who has been portrayed as a failure in business, when in fact he was really a do-it-yourself hard-working independent man. He freed his only slave and faced challenges alone. And yet his image, especially as told by the losers of the Civil War, is being tarnished unfairly as someone who struggled.

Think hard about that fact that the best evidence of an American white man (a hero really) doing hard work himself to be a truly “made man” has been viciously and falsely characterized by historians as a failure. In other words the people lauding some for the “fail faster” culture should embrace Grant, and yet you see them distanced and aloof. There’s a subtle reason for this.

On the flip side the complex narratives of success have often been unfairly replaced with a deceptive binary one — successful white men were hardworking even when everyone else was their property/prize and did the actual work.

Confusing matters is the fact that evidence pops up of white men bifurcating from others in the records of westward migration. Those taking the Oregon trail, for example, are described as those who tended to be families who would abide by regulations (e.g. religion and law) settled in with local populations. Those headed to California in contrast were predominantly single white men who waged an all out war on people and nature.

Bifurcation like this tends to end up being an oversimplification that doesn’t quite fit (Oregon was site of mass atrocities and some parts of California became preserves). It does show however a simple good/bad framework of settlement does manifest from a grain of truth as it feeds into narratives told by the self-appointed “good” story-tellers.

Here’s another way of looking at that bifurcation. In one infamous case a white man brought his slaves with him to California to seek gold and when none was found he abandoned them there and went back to a southeastern state. His freed slaves then found gold on their own and… that white man sued them, claiming two Americans and their gold should be seen as his property.

So when people describe the California trail as “single white men”, which it definitely had a lot of, keep in mind they may be (even unintentionally) erasing several or many team members carrying a “single” person on their shoulders.

Really this problem is rooted even deeper in American history. Slavery was banned in the colonial time (prior to 1750) and yet some settlers saw their role in a revolutionary war to expand slavery. Americans saw England making noises about abolition, even banning it in the latest colonies, and aimed to fight and keep slavery going.

This is why abolition arrived in some American states by 1820s in-line with the rest of the world, and a spirit of hard work became foundational. Whereas in Mexico a flood of white men settled and complained bitterly that frontier life was too harsh for white people to survive without slaves.

When I say Mexico, I mean Texas, the area these white men immigrated into then violently seceded, calling itself a “lone star” because it aimed for a white supremacists nation, to keep oppression and slavery going even if it meant being the last slave state in the world.

It is no coincidence that the sole survivor from the white supremacists side of battle at the Alamo was a slave. Mexican forced liberated that black man and killed his oppressors. “Remember the Alamo” really means don’t forget the battle for slavery that was lost when white people were defeated and their slave was set free.

This is all a long pre-text to set the background properly before reading a new article in the FT by a Texas historian, called “Americans want to be free to be stupid”

Freedom comes with responsibility. Being stupid is irresponsible. Does being free to be stupid therefore violate the principles of freedom?

The FT article skips right over the crucial fact that Texas “exceptionalism” and “frontier” spirit meant slavery.

Again, Texas was Mexico until white immigrants came with slaves and said no white man could survive the harsh conditions without non-whites to do all the hard work for them. They usurped power and seceded from Mexico (and later from America) just to avoid hard work and keep slaves instead.

Being “free to be stupid” is thus a dog-whistle to slavery, which is not freedom at all. It really means doing harm to others in the most selfish way possible.

This article also erases the significant role of women in the frontier, as men not only looked up to them but treated them as superiors and often substituted them for judge (where none could be found) in disputes.

“Madonna of the Trail” is such a memorial just outside Custer’s base camp in Kansas (just one of twelve placed along National Road US40, the first interstate highway established by act of Congress in 1806 and expanded 1926).

Madonna of the Trail, facing West alone with her rifle and children

Commissioned by the Daughters of the American Revolution, which had a well-deserved reputation for racism, every single statue is identical and unfortunately depicts only a white woman:

  1. Springfield OH – July 4, 1928
  2. Wheeling WV – July 7, 1928
  3. Council Grove KS – Sept 7, 1928
  4. Lexington, MO – Sept 17, 1928
  5. Lamar, CO – Sept 24, 1928
  6. Albuquerque, NM – Sept 27, 1928
  7. Springerville, AZ – Sept 29, 1928
  8. Vandalia, IL – Oct 26, 1928
  9. Richmond IN – Oct 28, 1928
  10. Beallsville, PA – Dec 8, 1928
  11. Upland, CA – Feb 1, 1929
  12. Bethesda, MD – April 19, 1929

It’s not expected to see history told by the FT in such a way that leaves out minorities and women. However it must be recognized more widely how this is continuation of information warfare methods in America that go all the way back to the late 1700s.

Some white men tend to claim to be doing hard work while erasing the fact that their privilege means the work is being done for them without real cost/responsibility.

Avoiding the true history of Texas and the role of women is precisely why this FT article is bunk. You can’t separate them. When “free to be stupid” means a privilege that translates direct to harms to others (e.g. human trafficking and slavery is stupid) that’s not real freedom, it’s oppression.

Calling stupid a freedom, when it means whites stupidly harming blacks, is the continuation of information warfare.

History, Security

Is Lyft Based on Apartheid’s “Lift System”?

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When I visited Lyft HQ when it first opened, they had a large mural timeline of their origin story that went something like this:

In 2006 Logan Green went to Zimbabwe and observed a system of crowd-sourced carpool networks. He came back to America and made a copy he called Zimride (Zimbabwe Ride).

I’ll never forget being in the office (for meetings) and having staff relate this mural story to me, because they said their founder vacationed in Africa after college and marveled at the “safety” of private drivers; white parents having a method of ride-sharing their kids to school (called the “lift system” in South Africa).

The Lyft staff didn’t say the exact word apartheid, of course, because they were blandly relating Rhodesian transportation history as if it were like any other system. It was based on white families driving their children to elitist schools, but that’s not how they framed it.

Anyway this Lyft story telling of their “safe” transport system origins from Africa raised alarms for me, given context of Zimbabwean history.

I also noticed the company seems to tell a very different story to the press, claiming their founder was just an admirer of taxis.

Zimride, in fact, is not a derivation of Zimmer’s name but a riff on Zimbabwe, where Green, now CEO, had observed the local propensity for ridesharing in minivan taxis.

This press brief makes no sense at all when you think about it even a little.

First, Lyft never attempted to work with taxis in America. From the start the company was billed as a whole alternative to taxis systems, so why would they say they liked African taxis?

More to the point who comes back from a vacation to an African country with the idea for a wealthy white person alternative to taxis in America? Does that really sound like observing Zimbabwean minivan taxis?

This kind of narrative disconnect between internal and external statements was highlighted in 2017 when Lyft eventually came around to launching a private “bus” service. I mean why didn’t they start with minivan taxis if that’s what they observed?

Anyway, eleven years late, their approach didn’t escape some predictable and obvious criticisms.

The Lyft Shuttle is pretty much a glorified city bus — with fewer poor people. The ride-sharing company’s much-hyped shuttle service seems designed to segregate transit customers by class.

A privilege bus.

Second, ride-sharing in minivan taxis (even pickups beds) has been a global phenomenon of efficient transport, not a concept unique to Zimbabwean culture. There must have been something unique to Zimbabwe being the origin story, aside from minivan taxis.

I’ve traveled all over the world in the minivan/microbus/kombi taxi and similar. From Poland to Indonesia, Zimbabwe to Philippines … you can find vehicles carrying 8-12 people running regular routes. When I was at EMC in 2012 I even worked with security systems to help make Pakistan’s “pink bus” safer (women only, with women guards riding and cameras) .

This is because a modern private micro bus naturally evolved by community-led transit planners to be an optimal solution on a development path towards achieving higher-volume buses or trains (a step on the way moving people further away from cars).

Lyft doesn’t fit that model, not at all. They started with cars where drivers were “safe” as if your friend or on your “side”, pandering openly to wealthy young white professionals and kids in school. That’s the apartheid white parents car-sharing story.

Due to congestion Zimbabwe in 2020 banned the private commuter omnibuses (kombis) that Lyft originally claimed to have been based upon. The gov only allows them to operate under a regulated national United Passenger Company (Zupco) franchise.

Again, a micro bus taxi service is not even close to what Lyft initially was planning, so the more likley Zimbabwean root is the Rhodesian/South African “lift system”.

After observing the micro bus taxis on predictable routes, CEO Green did the opposite and put passengers in the front seat of small cars on unrestricted paths. It sounds more like a trip to Zimbabwe left the founder thinking “how can I setup a service so white people like me can avoid crowded public transit such as the Zimbabwean taxi bus system”.

Anyway 2013 the founder decided to rename his original creation “Lyft”, the same as the apartheid “lift system” white parents used to shuttle their racist families and avoid the black taxis. The renaming meant a complete jettison of the Zimbabwe reference as the original name was sold to Enterprise.

The African root reference only lived on with that painted mural in the office, which I only happened to see because they invited me inside and told me a wild yet inconsistent story of appropriation. They’ve since moved their HQ and evidence of the mural is surely long gone.

You might be thinking the link to apartheid’s “lift system” is uncanny, yet insufficient on its own as just a coincidental name.

Let me now also poke here at the issue of a pink “carstache” wired to the front of original Lyft vehicles.

Lyft drivers reported overheating issues and car damage from blocking the radiator.

They were explained to me as highly distinguishable “safety” marketing for ride shares. It supposedly was meant to give riders obvious physical safety signaling. And yet anyone could buy one and celebrities promoted owning them.

A person who would dare to put a big pink thing on their car (remember the “pink bus” in 2012 Pakistan?) was advertised as someone who wouldn’t be physically dangerous to Lyft’s target population (white women).

…little-known fact: The bright pink color was inspired not only by the founders’ desire to seem friendly and bold, but also to make their branding a bit less masculine than competitors, and nod to their very welcome view toward female passengers and drivers, as well as emphasis on safety for women.

“Funny” big pink facial features when you meet your driver may instead read to some as two white guys’ doing some really insensitive appropriation of imagery in black culture. Look at the top lip in this iconic anti-black image:

Lyft adapted historic anti-black imagery as their signal for white women to feel welcome and safe

And notice how even Uber tried to portray Lyft’s requirement that riders must fist-bump drivers.

What’s so weird about requiring Lyft riders to do a fist-bump?

…the pound is “a gesture of solidarity and comradeship… also used in a celebratory sense and sometimes as a nuanced greeting among intimates and/or those with a shared social history”. They trace that history in mainstream black culture to the Sixties, when African-American soldiers fighting in Vietnam used the dap… fists meet vertically, one above the other.

I wonder if Lyft had anyone black in executive management on board with the big pink mustache/lip and forced fist-bump concepts. I found their 2018 diversity report illuminating, given they were on a massive hiring spree doubling the size of the company and yet had 0% black staff in technical leadership.

Speaking of which, did you know a whopping “75% of white Americans have no friends of color at all.”

Even worse, as you might guess from a company started by a white college grad unwittingly claiming inspiration from apartheid who partnered with a Wall Street banker, Lyft has been widely implicated in systemic victimization of women.

A single SF driver repeatedly attacked women over five years before police managed to track him down. That’s just one of literally thousands of their unsafe ride-share cases highlighted by 20 women suing the company.

“Lyft has been aware of the staggering number of assaults and rapes that occur in their vehicles for years. They continue to conceal those numbers from the public and Lyft customers,” Bomberger said in a statement. “That is not a commitment to safety. It is a commitment to profits.”

Obviously Lyft has totally obliterated their origin story now. You won’t find them speaking of Africa or the white woman “safety” angle in the same way. They now downplay the big pink face features, quit the fist-bump, and strut about like ride-sharing was just something they invented while bored and traveling around California.

It may be important to revisit the whole origin story again, however, as researchers have been looking more deeply at the decision algorithms and continue to reveal racism in ride-sharing platforms.

…fares tended to be higher for drop-offs in Chicago neighborhoods with high non-white populations…an earlier report published in October 2016 by the National Bureau of Economic Research that found in the cities of Boston and Seattle male riders with African American names were 3 times more likely to have rides canceled and wait as much as 35% longer for rides.