Chess politics - Re: Braunlich's article, "Scholastics and the Soul of Chess" (OT)

Author

Re: Braunlich's article, "Scholastics and the Soul of Chess" (OT)

Nick

2005-01-18, 12:45 am

Tim Hanke wrote:

quote:

> With typical RGCP charm, "David Kane" <davidekane@comcast.net> wrote
>
> I don't think you can argue that I "have this completely backwards,"
> because I spoke from my own experience as a boy. My own experience
> as a boy includes both scholastic chess and playing at the local
> chess club in Rochester, N.Y. with players of all ages.
>
> Today I run a local weeknight chess club in Newburyport, Mass.,
> and I do not regard my club as "populated by freaks."
> We get 15-20 adults most nights, with the players spanning a wide
> socioeconomic range: including two lawyers, at least one man with
> a Ph.D., one translator, a couple of retirees, a car mechanic, a
> writer, a librarian, two editors, a young man who made a lot of
> money with email spam, a couple of unemployed people (including me),
> etc. I don't know what everyone there does for a living nor do I ask.
> It is a cross-section of society, composed of people whom I find more

quote:

> interesting than most people I meet. ...

Thanks to Tim Hanke for the information about his chess club.

"It is a cross-section of society", according to Tim Hanke, but would
about half of the players in that 'cross-section of society' be female?
If not, then would it not be more accurate to have described it as
'a cross-section of *male* society'?

I am *not* saying that it's the fault of Tim Hanke (or of any other
individual male chess-player) that there are not more women in his
(or in most) chess club. But I think that it would be better for
chess if we should recognise that there tends to be a significant
subculture of sexism in many, if not most, chess clubs.

I have heard some women say that they tend to feel uncomfortable
or reluctant about entering an all-male (or a nearly all-male) social
group (such as a chess club) with some apparent tradition of disdain
toward women as being considered equally worthy members.

Tim Hanke has written of his experiences as a boy, playing chess with
'players (presumably nearly all of whom were males) of all ages'.
But if Tim Hanke had been a girl, then would Miss Hanke or her parents
have felt equally comfortable about allowing her to play chess with
males 'of all ages' (such as with Sam Sloan, for instance)?

"It must have been dreadful for you as a girl playing chess.
Not only are you butting heads against this kind of atmosphere,
but also you receive sexual remarks. This really does upset me,
because I think of chess as a sport that should allow men and women
to compete equally. You shouldn't have to face any extra worries
or fears as a woman."
--GM Yasser Seirawan (as told to and quoted by Claire Summerscale
in 'Interview with a Grandmaster', p. 27)

It seems true that most women and girls tend not to speak up in
public about their feeling uncomfortable or feeling excluded
(in practice, though not necessarily by policy) from their full
participation in a chess club. But I would submit that the men
who already happen to be in chess clubs should consider more
what they could do to encourage more women to join them there.
The people with more power and privileges should consider the
interests of those people whose voices tend to be unheard.

There's a *significant difference* between being told that there's
a pro forma policy of 'tolerance' with regard to racism and sexism
and actually being welcomed in reality to an organisation, whether
professional or social. Every woman or 'person of colour' of my
acquaintance (including me) can tell well enough (whether or not
we choose to say it in public) when we are being welcomed with
equal respect and when we are being grudgingly 'tolerated', but
*not* truly accepted or respected, by those people who like to
pretend that there's no racism or sexism in their organisations.

By the way, I have met some proud Americans who belong to some
'all-white' private clubs in the United States, which exclude
all perceived non-whites from entry. Those Americans refuse to
regard that kind of exclusion as 'racist' in any way. Indeed,
those proud Americans like to say that racism is *only* 'a thing
of the past' in the United States, which they regard as having
become a 'color-blind' society. It's interesting (sarcasm
intended) what might be said and generally accepted as true in
those 'all-white' private clubs in the United States.

Here's an article, "The Martin Luther King You Don't See on TV"
by Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon, about the conventional 'patriotic'
US media censorship (or misrepresentation) of Martin Luther King Jr.:

http://www.fair.org/media-beat/950104.html

"It's become a TV ritual. Every year in mid-January, around the
time of Martin Luther King's birthday, we get perfunctory network
news reports about 'the slain civil rights leader'.

The remarkable thing about this annual review of King's life is
that several years--his last years--are totally missing, *as if
flushed down a memory hole*.
....
An alert viewer might notice that the chronology jumps from 1965 to
1968. Yet King didn't take a sabbatical near the end of his life.
In fact, he was speaking and organizing as diligently as ever.
Almost all of those speeches were filmed or taped.
*But they're not shown today on TV* (in the United States).

Why?

*It's because the (US) national news media have never come to terms
with what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for during his final years.*
....
By 1967, King had become the country's most prominent opponent of
the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy,
which he deemed militaristic. In his 'Beyond Vietnam' speech
delivered at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 ...
King called the United States 'the greatest purveyor of violence
in the world today'.

quote:

>From Vietnam to South African to Latin America, King said, the U.S.

was 'on the wrong side of a world revolution'. King questioned
'our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America', and asked
why the U.S. was suppressing the revolutions 'of the shirtless and
barefoot people' in the Third World, instead of supporting them.
....
You haven't heard the 'Beyond Vietnam' speech on (US) network news
retrospectives, but (US) national media heard it loud and clear back
in 1967--and loudly denounced it. ..."

--Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon (4 January 1995)

As I write this, 'Martin Luther King Jr. Day' is being observed as
a holiday in most, though not all, states of the United States.

Given the rampant jingoism, racism, and triumphalism that reigns in
the United States today, it seems natural that the US government and
the 'mainstream' US media would strongly prefer that Americans *not*
remember Martin Luther King Jr. as the radical critic of the United
States that he had become by the end of his life (he was murdered on
4 April 1968) but *only* as the 'whitewashed' (to be made politically
acceptable) speaker of the familiar 'I Have a Dream' sound-bite.
veritas odium parit (Terence)

--Nick