When technology eliminates practical differences between races and genders — when augmentation, genetic modification, and AI assistance make physical and cognitive attributes fully customizable — the historical bases for racism and sexism become functionally meaningless. But the social functions those prejudices served don't disappear.
This theme requires careful, nuanced treatment. The insight is not that prejudice is good, but that it served specific social functions beyond pure discrimination: in-group bonding, identity formation, social hierarchy maintenance, tribal belonging, and cognitive shortcuts for navigating complex social environments. When the old categories lose their basis, new categories emerge to serve those same functions.
In the Sprawl, the new axes of prejudice include: augmented vs. natural ("chromers" vs. "organics"), AI-aligned vs. AI-skeptical, corporate-born vs. street-born, uploaded consciousness vs. embodied, and most pervasively — class. Class-based prejudice becomes the dominant form of social division, because in a world where race and gender are mutable, your economic stratum is the one thing that's hardest to change and most visible in every interaction.
What slurs emerge? What stereotypes? What does "passing" mean when it refers to class rather than race? What does integration look like? What civil rights movements form around the new fault lines?