Black (Grandmaster) Lives Matter

[Tomis Chagall]

Therefore, by your argument, Britain must be even less democratic since our governments rarely win 40% of the vote, never mind 50+%

I don’t quite follow. Clinton got more votes than Trump was what I said. How large or small the share is, was irrelevant in this case. It could have been 23% vs. 24%, as long as for one of them this meant the majority of votes. In Germany, you enter into coalitions in these cases (to answer your question, yes, I much prefer the German hybrid system here).

https://www.britannica.com/topic/electi ... ty-systems
»The majority and the plurality formulas do not always distribute legislative seats in proportion to the share of the popular vote won by the competing parties. Both formulas tend to reward the strongest party disproportionately and to handicap weaker parties, though these parties may escape the inequities of the system if their support is regionally concentrated. For example, in national elections in Britain in 2001, the Labour Party captured more than three-fifths of the seats in the House of Commons, even though it won barely two-fifths of the popular vote; in contrast, the Conservative Party won one-fourth of the seats with nearly one-third of the vote.«

Both sides understood very well how the system works and campaigned accordingly. This is the bogus argument of a loser - if the goalposts had been shifted just an inch to the left, we would have won.

Don’t quite follow here, either. I pointed out that it’s not a democratic election, because the popular vote doesn’t count. Instead, there are less than 600 people, in a country whose population counts close to 330 million, who decide who becomes the state leader. The candidates may know how the system works, but it’s irrelevant in regard to the fact that it’s not democratic. The Chinese members of the nomenclature also know how the PRC’s system works and act in accordance to that.

Well amidst the digressions i did actually ask on page 1 what the chess community could do? But then posters challenged whether Avrukh was actually racist and we've ended up in not chess country, possibly because some posters don't care about racist behaviour, but I can't be certain of that. I would still like to know whether FIDE has mechanisms for dealing with racism inside/outside competition.

True, I won’t derail further. Depends on whether FIDE would have a code of conduct similar to its ethics section in the FIDE Handbook that applies to all federation members outside of election campaigns of official positions in the hierarchy, or whether this code of conduct is applicable in the first place.

I saw that there were references to it when Tunisia denied a young Israeli girl a visa in order to take part in the World School Championship. After pressure from FIDE, they backpedalled:
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/sports ... tournament
But again, this was not a case where an individual’s actions were sanctioned or under scrutiny.

There’s also a very simple solution: Black moves first.
https://www.moveforequality.com/

By the number of downvotes and the turned off comments, it seems that many people didn’t quite get it …
https://youtu.be/VPFI3-W8Fqo

»A famous example of a game that was actually played “in reverse” was the Immortal Game (Anderssen-Kieseritzky, London 1851). Anderssen moved first, but played with the black pieces. It was later recorded from the white side.«

The Chess Drum has been accused of being racist as far back as 2007, from a certain Javier Gil representing Australia—I like the accuser’s train of thought:

https://www.thechessdrum.net/65thSquare ... aug07.html
»I find your site very offensive and racist, and I think a lot of other people do also. But most of all, your site saddens me enormously. Is this what you understand by putting into practice Martin's Luther's teachings? I'm shocked. You're doing just the opposite.

Your comparison with my country links doesn't stand to logic: those links are there to help people find information on chess in their given area and have nothing to do with race.«

[Tim Spanton]

Clinton got more votes than Trump was what I said. How large or small the share is, was irrelevant in this case. It could have been 23% vs. 24%, as long as for one of them this meant the majority of votes.

But Clinton did not get a majority of the votes - she won 48.2%, which is 1.8+% less than a majority.

And both Clinton and Trump got a larger percentage of the votes than Britain's head of state, as did Gary Johnson who finished with 3.2%.

[Tomis Chagall]

We have different definitions of majority: nobody accumulated more votes than Clinton, she was in first place, Trump came second.

[Tim Spanton]

There is only one definition of majority - it means more than half.

[Tomis Chagall]

I’m afraid that’s not correct:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictio ... h/majority

»in an election, the difference in the number of votes between the winning person or group and the one that comes second:
The Democratic candidate won by a narrow/large majority«

[MJMcCready]

In chess the first example of colour and its connection to prejudice I encountered was when I began to learn about Paul Morphy, as I first learnt he was 'definitely not black', 'he wasn't really white he was creole', and the most shocking of all 'he was a cultured and learned American and a genius at chess and only plays with a dummy hand in bridge'.

[Tim Spanton]

I’m afraid that’s not correct:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictio ... h/majority

»in an election, the difference in the number of votes between the winning person or group and the one that comes second:
The Democratic candidate won by a narrow/large majority«

Yes, and majority can also mean the age at which a person is considered to become an adult, but you were using majority in its main sense in that you were claiming Clinton won "the majority of votes." She did not - no candidate won more than half of the votes, which what in this context majority means.

[Tomis Chagall]

We can go back and forth on this, but I gave you a quote from the Cambridge dictionary that supports exactly what I said, and I could post a few other reputable sources.

I haven't seen you provide a source for your claim that it's the only apodictic definition, and thus it is false, unfortunately. It's one of several, which is fine, but not the exclusively applicable one.

Clinton won the majority of votes.

@MJM, Morphy is a very good example, indeed. Depending on the perspective, certain groups would appropriate him because of his accomplishments in chess, or reject him due to his »non-standard« heritage. Napoleon Marache also comes to mind as a possible target of that era.

It does beg the question if and how FIDE deals with racism issues as compared to FIFA, FIBA and other sports organizations. I've seen that the ECF has a stance on this, so it's surprising that a (admittedly shallow) google search didn't produce any results for FIDE.

[Joseph Conlon]

Don’t quite follow here, either. I pointed out that it’s not a democratic election, because the popular vote doesn’t count. Instead, there are less than 600 people, in a country whose population counts close to 330 million, who decide who becomes the state leader. The candidates may know how the system works, but it’s irrelevant in regard to the fact that it’s not democratic. The Chinese members of the nomenclature also know how the PRC’s system works and act in accordance to that.

This is definitely 'not chess', but the same is true in the UK, as the prime minister is the person who commands a majority of the 650 members of the House of Commons, and is not directly elected (even leaving aside the hereditary Head of State.....)

If your conclusion from this is that neither the USA nor the UK are democracies, then (in my opinion) you have the wrong definition of democracy.

[John McKenna]

The definitions of words have changed over time and become more diluted.

However, you can try to make up for that, to some extent, by using more words so that contemporary meaning can be made clear.

The UK, USA and some other modern states are "representative democracies".

(Switzerland comes closer to being a *direct democracy" but is an exception in today's world.)

The ancient Greeks who coined the word "democracy" would think it has been much devalued if they could see how it is used, in word and deed, today.

Regarding the above exchanges about the word "majority" this one shows Tomis C cleary knows what it means and how to use it correctly -

Trump won 46.1% of the vote - a larger share than most UK governments get

Clinton got 48.2% of the vote … proving my statement above that there is no democratic election in the USA, where the majority of votes by the population counts. A country with a system where the minority vote wins.

Any subsequent exchanges to that needed to include the word "plurality" (to differentiate between total numbers of votes) instead of getting into a muddle about the different uses of "majority".

The results of the elections discussed above were clearly decided by pluralities. The only recent vote in the UK that was decided by a clear majority is popularly designated by the B-word and because it was a UK-wide referendum it was a democratic vote.

Words matter, less so than lives of any colour, but they are what we have to live with and by, as best we can.

[Mick Norris]

Well amidst the digressions i did actually ask on page 1 what the chess community could do? But then posters challenged whether Avrukh was actually racist and we've ended up in not chess country, possibly because some posters don't care about racist behaviour, but I can't be certain of that. I would still like to know whether FIDE has mechanisms for dealing with racism inside/outside competition.

Good questions; like Sir Humphrey asking for an enquiry, it may be to obfuscate the point that the thread has been dragged elsewhere

My daughter spent quite some time on group chat with her school friends yesterday explaining why Black Lives Matter isn't to be replaced by All Lives Matter, and why her experience of racism isn't the same as her white friends even if they are Polish/Irish; it is good that 15 year olds are being educated although a bit depressing this isn't being done by her teachers

Perhpas someone can actually answer your question about FIDE (although having a Russian President won't help in my view)

[Jonathan Bryant]

Well amidst the digressions i did actually ask on page 1 what the chess community could do? But then posters challenged whether Avrukh was actually racist and we've ended up in not chess country, possibly because some posters don't care about racist behaviour, but I can't be certain of that. I would still like to know whether FIDE has mechanisms for dealing with racism inside/outside competition.

I don’t know the answer to your question but Nigel Short responded to a tweet I’d ... what you call it? tweeted? - about Avrukh and the prospect of a response from FIDE. The gist of his response seemed to be that it wasn’t surprising that Avrukh posted what he did.

I’m not sure what difference that makes, but in any event, it was an opportunity for somebody directly involved with FIDE to say something along the lines of, "This is unacceptable. We will ... [WHATEVER]... " That opportunity was not taken. Which is a message in itself, of sorts.

[John McKenna]

Well amidst the digressions i did actually ask on page 1 what the chess community could do? But then posters challenged whether Avrukh was actually racist...

Not true as the following, and more, took place before you posted anything here -

SNIP

Avrukh's post was racist.

I don’t care in the slightest whether or not that kind of exprience is common in Prague. I care how we respond to it when it happens within the chess world.

Thanks for making clear the way you see it, Jon

SNIP

I do not see from your original quote that Avrukh makes an outright denial that "systemic racism" exists since he asks Carlsson for a "better example".

For all anyone knows Avrukh could be comparing "systematic racism" in the USA to that in more totalitarian states of the past, or present.

I do not agree with Mick M about the lesser degree of the age-old Irish question of foreign domination and discrimination because the Africans, Indians, Poles, etc. all came into contact with the powers there have been, and continue to be, in Britain much later than the Irish.

The current partion of the island of Ireland shows the level of that long and deep-seated historical wrong.

The treatment of Africans (and others) was worse during the "slave trade". (Slavery itself existed long, long before that and possibly first arose significantly as the result of tribal warfare.)

The name Caribean comes from the name, Carib, of the people who inhabited the islands before Europreans arrived. Almost all that remains of them is that name.

(Genocide is worse than slavery because there is no escape from death in this world. Although on an individual level there are fates worse than death.)

Who owns those islands now?

Those - from all over the world - who follow the money to these British isles do so out of self-interest (no matter what else they claim) and should understand what they are getting themselves into.

This is not their country any more than it is mine because it is a wholly-owned capitalist enterprise that began to sprout with Henry VII and came to full fruitition under Victoria and now continues to wither on the vine under Elizabeth II - due to a couple of extremely bad winters, known as World Wars.

Africans, Chinese, Indians & Pakistanis now comprise the largest populations on the planet. Those that make it here are the lucky ones because there's less to go round where they came from. (Edit - I did not include the Indonesians because, for some reason, they do not make their way here in significant numbers.)

Now feel free to fire away with any racist epithets.

[NickFaulks]

(Edit - I did not include the Indonesians because, for some reason, they do not make their way here in significant numbers.)

Rather obviously, Indonesia was never part of the British Empire, being controlled for better or worse by the Dutch. On my return to London from Amsterdam, it was a source of distress that it was impossible to find a good rijsttafel.

[J T Melsom]

What is not true about my post other than a slight insignificant debate about sequence of posts? The key questions I posed have largely gone unanswered amidst a lot of interesting but largely irrelevant verbiage. It is very much to my mind as if the original alleged racism doesn't matter. (I include the word alleged just to avoid the repetition of your somewhat tortured justification of Avrukh). And if it really is the case that it doesn't matter to members of the chess community and governing bodies then that's pretty shocking.

Nick, can you not offer some detail about attitudes within FIDE to these issues?