A reflection on David Silver's "Looking Backwards, Looking Forward"

In reading David Silver's "Looking Backwards, Looking Forward: Cyberculture Studies 1990-2000," I must admit that the first thing that struck me about this was the time period. It was early on in that period that I received my own first exposure to the Internet, and to the world of cyberculture. It's difficult to fathom, even having lived through it, the vast changes that have occurred since that time (even in the past two or three years, for that matter), and how much might still be the same. While technology grows and changes, we still find the Internet riddled with the issues that Silver and the cyberculturalists he discussed faced: a great divide between people of different races, ethnicities, and genders. While, at the time of reading this article, I didn't have more current statistics (this is something that bears looking into in the near future), I can't help but wonder how the statistics have changed. Most certainly it is far more common to have a computer with internet access in the home, or access to the Internet in public schools and libraries (as well as the ever-popular cyber-cafes); and perhaps the divide has lessened a good deal in terms of access (though this could also be wishful thinking on my part), but in terms of expression, is there a greater equality? If such is the case, then why do so many choose anonymity, facelessness, pseudonimity? Is that anonymity the key to lessening the "digital divide," or does it worsen the problem, as Nakamura noted about the perception of Asian males as anochronistic stereotypes throughout cyberspace? When there is no option of "race," "gender," or even "name," what sort of identities are we constructing?