Nakamura, Digitizing Race, Introduction, chapter 5, Epilogue

The Social Optics of Race 99
Figure 3.1. White interfaces in The Matrix: Reloaded.
picted guiding the ship into port) with images of the Zion gate operator, a
white woman. As the two converse, two competing image sets of interface
design are put into conversation as well.
These images literally contrast “black” and “white” interface culture—
while the Zion gate operator’s clothing, monitor, and face are all white,
transparent, and futuristically modern in the classic visual style of science
fiction from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) to Space: 1999 (1975–77) and
onward, Link and the Nebuchadnezzar are part of the Afro-futuristic visual
culture that the trilogy has exploited so effectively throughout. 10 Link wears
dreadlocks and a grubby, semi-unraveled sweater; his ship is dark and shadowy;
and his black padded analog-style headset resembles equipment you
might see in the past rather than in the future. The Zion gate operator wears
blindingly white and tailored clothes, occupies a spotlessly clean space, wears
her hair in a tight bun, and is herself smooth and pale. Most importantly,
she has a radically different relation to the computer and its interface than
does Link. While he types commands on an antiquated keyboard, she is
jacked in differently. Her body is linked to the computer through a more
direct means: gesture. While it has been a familiar trope for cyberpunk narratives
to deploy pastiches of historical and sartorial styles to depict an unevenly
developed and dystopic technological future, this scene superimposes
the two contrastingly racialized visual styles of the interface to invoke the
crucial difference in this film: that between white culture and black culture.
Indeed, as Roger Ebert writes, “The population of Zion [and the film] is
largely black,” and “a majority of the characters were played by African
Americans.” This is extremely unusual for science fiction narrative, in which
people of color are largely absent as main characters. Ebert addresses this
anomaly as follows: “It has become commonplace for science fiction epics to