»Thoughts about the White-Black ratio«

Strange Fact1: In the first film the crew is very mixed race, although both 'natural humans' are black.

Idea1: Remembering the fact that humans are grown we can assume the the gene pool may be restricted therefore a high percentage of whites in the matrix. Also, the parts of the world less savaged by war would be arguably Africa and Asia, as they are less industrial. Therefore more blacks and asians would have had a chance to hide underground from the machines, while the whites in Europe, USA and the Chinese (nuclear powers) would have been fighting with the machines and would be the first target of any 'human' cleansing......

Idea2: What if the blacks plugged into the Matrix think they are white??? After all the image they see is how they see themselves mentally. If you have never seen yourself how would you know what you look like? Only after being freed do you realise your true skin colour...

zamarano wrote:

Only after being freed do you realise your true skin colour...

Good one, have added it.

zamarano wrote:

After all the image they see is how they see themselves mentally. If you have never seen yourself how would you know what you look like?

I don't think this is the case. After all, when Neo awoke, he looked exactly the same save some facial hair and atrophied muscles. I believe that when one is connected to the Matrix, one's physical characteristics become a part of one's avatar. Otherwise, when one would plug into the matrix again, one's appearance would change back to one's risidual self image. Hence, Morpheus (Zion) wouldn't look like Morpheus (Matrix), Trinity wouldn't look like Trinity, and so on...

Morpheus does tell us why there are so many black and asian people that have been freed. When he asks that one ship stay behind, he said that something to the extent that "we are here because our affinity to disobediance." And since most White people are sheep (known for following rules) this is why they don't wake up as often as black and asian people.

Or maybe it just simply means:

When the chips are stacked against you and life is on the line, the person next to you will be fighting just as hard reguardless of their race, gender, or religon.

Or maybe:

Zion is an equal opportunity employer...? heh


matrix-explained.com...

A: That's racist

and

B: I'm sure the French and other resistance fighters in Europe during the Second World War would have something to say about that....

Then we have the various peasant revolts throughout Medieval Europe and the South rejecting the North in the American Civil War.....

Get your facts straight!!

zamarano wrote:

A: That's racist

It's not.

Only if he would state, that blacks are disobedient and that disobedience is BAD. But instead he is talking about heroes. But you are correct if the statement "Asians are intelligent" is racist, too.

zamarano wrote:

I'm sure the French and other resistance fighters in Europe during the Second World War would have something to say about that....

Whatever they have to say about that, HolEavataR didn't deny them, so I don't know what you are referring, too. "Since most White people are sheep" doesn't exclude any disobedient whites.

zamarano wrote:

Get your facts straight!!

I also disagree with HolEavataR. It doesn't seem to me that Whites are better followers than blacks.

I realise that what I said may have been misconstrued as racist. Perhaps I should have said that in a modern world, where minorities seem to be anything but white people, minorities (such as blacks or asians) would have more of a reason to deny the world (ie. disobey) than those who are comfortable in it (ie. White).

Case in point: If you liked the matrix, would you want to wake up?

Please keep in mind I am only referring to the world as it is today, not history. I hope this better expresses what I was trying to say in my previous post.

zamarano wrote:

we can assume the the gene pool may be restricted therefore a high percentage of whites in the matrix.

I don't follow the reasoning here, why would there be?

Quote:

Therefore more blacks and asians would have had a chance to hide underground from the machines

And do what? wander around until they find zion?

Quote:

Idea2: What if the blacks plugged into the Matrix think they are white???

Again, the logic in this escapes me. If you don't know what you look like, why would you assume you must be white?

Anyway, if the architect is to be believed, all this is irrelevant. Previous inhabitants of zion that "wandered in" would have been wiped out five times over.

So we're back to the 23+1 thing again, and since you are starting with such a few people, the initial gene pool is limited. Those freed would add to the mix in time, but only after Zion has established itself.

Ultimately in a closed system such as Zion, the terms Black and White would be irrelevant as pretty much everybody would be of mixed race.

Perhaps the reason why there seems to be more "Black" people at the Zion rave is more to do with dominant genes than positive discrimination.

One reason that most of zion is not mostly caucasion is how few there are relative to the rest of the world.

As of now there is about 6.1 billion people in the world
21% chinese
17% india
4.5% united states (not nearly all white)

If you were to take a handfull, oh, say 24 people, most would not be white.

To make another point-
-Also, although I'm not sure, when Neo was first brought back into the matrix in the white screen (for uploading) and was told about the residual self image I believe Neo's eyes are BLUE. (I haven't noticed them since)

Of coarse for the sake of the viewers sanity Warner Bros. would not have two people for each charactor.

Thanks, Derek

eh its true about the "if you were to compact today's world into 100 people" theory that could be the idea, but also he whole idea about affinity for disobediance and sheeps following, sheeps are white and then theres the black sheep....the one singled out. Just a color thing. Also how could people in the matrix have any idea how they look, they would just make it up, unless the system checked their DNA and gave them their image.

I have to agree with the world demographics point....the population of the world is mostly non white......my point about the gene pool was based apon this assumption:

The most powerful military powers on earth (today) are all white (exept China) and have been for a long time. Assuming that these countries, aka Russia, USA, UK and Europe, Australia etc, are still powerful when the war starts then the big fight would be these powers and maybe China versus the machines. When the war is all but won by the machines I would argue that most prisoners of war would be white. The human growth process would be started and tested on whites, hence alot of whites in the matrix. In the mean time other ethnic groups have had time to join forces and create zion, ie asians and blacks. The only big issue with my hypothesis is: Where are all the Chinese? There are very few in the films, in Zion or in the Matrix

Rather than arguing about whites in the Matrix and Blacks and Asians in Zion maybe we should ask why there are so few Chinese....only the Serpah springs to mind!

zamarano9999 wrote:

The most powerful military powers on earth (today) are all white (exept China)

and North-Korea

zamarano9999 wrote:

the big fight would be these powers and maybe China versus the machines.

as I write on my site.

zamarano9999 wrote:

When the war is all but won by the machines I would argue that most prisoners of war would be white.

which means, that 99% of all test subjects could refer to too many whites, as I write on my site.

zamarano9999 wrote:

there are so few Chinese....only the Serpah springs to mind!

..the Keymaker (Randall Duk Kim) is Chinese

Considering that the movie takes place in the distant future; it is possible that in the future the white population becomes the minority. This may hold some truth, if you look up minority vs majority population growth - I recall that non-white families tend to outnumber white families in producing offspring. If this is a fact, and it continues for 100's or 1000's of years - eventually the majority becomes the minority.

SIDE NOTE:

take a look at China & India - just these two country's have a population of approx 1 BILLION each (plus or minus).

If a major world war broke out or some kind of disaster - most likely the human survivors would not be majority white. We just see majority white-cast movies/television a lot of the time because these are American movies etc. The W. Brothers just went the other direction and made the survivor's of Zion majority ethnic - which I personally think was a nice touch.

still according to demographics 1/4 of the cast should be chinese and 1/5 should be Indian

2 chinese characters is not very high........


Deus Ex, I wouldn't worry about the distant future, whites are the minority already.

SIDE NOTE: Having established that whites are the minority on the planet and this film is about a global issue if anyone is an ethnic minority it is the whites!

Going back to Zamarano's theory that maybe the people have different residual self images than their race

Almost all of the people that have been freed wear an oriental suit some outfit that resembles an oriental outfit.

Just something to notice.

Thanks, Derek

there could be one really simple solution:

the wachowski's decided that the previous ONE was black