Franchises and Alliances

Snow Crash imagines a world in which every organization or social group has the power to franchise itself and declare itself sovereign. In this world, every "burbclave," a mix of the suburban ideal and a gated, turret guarded community, has its own laws and rules. In Snow Crash, some burbs allow only whites, some only blacks. Many franchises are racially divided as well. There is the Italian american Mafia, Asian American Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong, and Hispanic Narcolumbian franchise. Each of these groups represents a single racial group, and although some are open to dealing with others, they are essentially closed to other races. We know for example, that the Mafia and the Narcolumbians are at war, and that some in the Mafia refer to citizens of Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong as 'Nips' and obvious slur against the Japanese. Although we seldom encounter straight racism in the novel, there is one scene in which Hiro is confronted by citizens of New South Africa, a burbclave which enforces Apartheid style regulations, because of his Blasian ethnicity. This is actually one of the few times Hiro's African American identity is referenced.

Interestingly, the worst represented ethnicity in the novel would have to be African Americans. Although Hiro is himself half Black, he much more closely follows Asian stereotypes than Black ones. In addition, there is no powerful Black franchise in the novel, and only one black burbclave is mentioned. To build off Mark Dery's essay for last week, one might conclude that Stephenson does not imagine Blacks as easily in his technologically futuristic world.

Despite the poor representation of Blacks in the novel, Snow Crash certainly emphasizes the importance of diversity. Parallel to the battle between Lagos' team and Rife's is a battle between conformity and homogeneity, and sub-culture and diversity. Rife though he gathers his power from all over the world, refugees from Asia, weapons from Russia, and Raven from Alaska, seeks to homogenize them and brainwash them into Me following slaves. Lagos' team, on the other hand, is made up of hackers, thrashers, the Mafia, Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong, and of course Ng's robot dogs. There is no attempt to force them to conform, but rather each element's specialties are integral to their success as a whole. Hiro represents this alliance perfectly. He is, as his business card suggests, many things at once. He is a famous hacker, a great swordsman, a member of Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong and an employee of the Mafia and the CIC, and of course he is of mixed racial background to boot. Hiro is the product of a hundred clashing cultures. Paradoxically the world he protects is not just that of the thrashers and hackers, diverse subcultures, but also the America of the franchise, which, while still diverse, celebrates uniformity to an absurd degree. Even though the mind-controlling machinations of Rife are foiled, isn't America still heading towards an increasingly uniform franchised, burbclaved future?