One of the great features of intelligent interests like science fiction is that it brings people together, putting aside such trivialities as physical differences or such issues as nationality, in favor of the creative spirit and the connections that we as living beings share in the great momentum of conscious existence. This is a fundamental theme of Avatar, but the experience of this theme extends beyond watching the film itself.

One particularly elegant demonstration of this phenomenon happened to me a few months ago at DragonCon, while I was wandering with a friend, while wearing my Na'vi costume, an outfit consisting of a full body suit and meticulously applied paint, covering my face and hands. She had on a partially assembled dragon costume, but at the time, her head and hands were off, and people could see her face. Someone asked if I was my friend's brother. We thought this question was amusing, since she is African-American, whereas I am white. At that moment, I had stopped being a human nationality. I could have been any race. What at the time seemed simply amusing became a more profound statement to the world outside the convention, where people are still caught up in petty conflicts over differences that, from a genetic standpoint, are essentially cosmetic.

Racial divides are narrowing, but they still have yet to be eliminated. It is fitting that Zoë Saldana, who played Neytiri, should have also played Uhura the same year in an update of Star Trek; Uhura's mere presence on the bridge of the Enterprise was a landmark in the 1960s of re-thinking races, and we as fans owe a great debt to the Trek franchise towards helping to bring us where we are today. I am pleased to have had this experience, a reminder that we are all smukan sì smukee, brothers and sisters.