Chess described as racist and sexist

Last time I heard something about this, "white" people only constituted around 10% of the global population...

let me 1st say that race is a silly and stupid concept created by ignorant ppl which has unfortunately become a reality we most deal with head on...but this is how i look at it....if you look at the last 2000 years and the relation between "black" Africans & "white" European/Asians you will see that chess is a sub-conscious reflection of that relationship...the white side always going 1st is offense/defense and the black side defense/offense similar to the Europeans invading Africa and warring/conquering & controlling  with the continent and its ppl ...

there you go thinking like Hitler again.  He didn't count Asian's as white either even though 98% of them are.  Asian's a make up at LEAST 17% of the world so there's way more then 10% of he world with just one sub-group of white people.

Excuse me, did tonymtbird just say that 98% of Asians are white??? Are you out of your mind? Why don't you just say that all green fruits are really vegetables? I think there is some big misconception about this race thing. There are separate races on this planet because, humans, like snowflakes, come in infinite variety. Locale, temperature, terrain, and random gene chance have split us from whatever original race the was (if there was an original race); but we are all human! But to assume that 98% of asians are white??? hhmmphh, puh-lease! Are 98% of blacks really white, too?  and what about Middle Easterns and, hey, maybe dogs and cats are really white, too? maybe we're all descended from aliens, wouldn't that make us all green? Maybe 98% of whites are really asian and black?

I mean, hey, Jesus came out of Africa, didn't he; that would make him black or Egyptian, right? and before you say it, I'm not even a christian, so don't go there. 

Please don't display such ignorance here.

and finally.....it is so rude to compare someone's thinking with an obviously insane person (i.e.- Hitler), that is so pathetic; don't you think you should apologize to chessoholicalien?

Sorry, that didn't even make sense. I'm not even going to waste words on your likening of me to Hitler. I utterly fail to see how you arrive at that absurd conclusion.

It's a load of nonsense.  Political correctness; get rid of this shit!

 Crazychess,

Thank you for the link.This article, though well written, is a bit confusing. It says the king's "advisor" became a female (queen) in 1475 yet remained weak until 1495 when Queen Isabelle was most powerful. It then mentions earlier games in verse with the new moves.  I have a copy of "The Golden Treasury: which has a "shortly after 1485 game when the...moves...were changed".  I do not claim to be an authority.  Because so many moves were changed, (bishop, castling, pawn's 1st move, pawn promotion etc.) that I think my claiming that it was done to make the game more interesting rather than for social reasons is probably valid.

Back to the original poster: I think the author was making a straw man argument.  I can recall no written criticism of chess from any reputable source that pegs the game as either racist of sexist.  

When we use red pieces we still call them "black."

We are a twisted race 

I for one am very offended.

Well, if you have an agenda, you can read a meaning into anything you can think of.

Of course the pieces were originally green and red, as I recall, in the Indian precursor to modern chess, and in the modern game ivory sets typically had red men, not black (red being the standard for ivory sets, not the uncommon black). Wood sets didn't use ebony nearly as often as they used other woods so the dark side was often brown. Sometimes the colors used were red and black for the sides--so I wonder what the race-hunters would make out of that?

As Schachgeek and others have noted, the use of white/black is just a convenience. Why inject race into it? Why try to introduce division into chess when there is no good reason to do so? Are you so miserable in your life that you have to try to bring others into a state of faux-guilt and shame?

when people inject racist, sexist or any kind of bigoted remarks into something ignorantly, they only show others who the real bigots are.

what it means is that some people are always willing to point the finger and say "that's racist" or "your racist" and nothing of the sort is meant or intended. You only show people that the racist one is one pointing the finger. It is a common theme to accuse someone of the thing we are guilty of; it brings them down to our level in our own minds and sets others against them so they don't see the ugliness inside of us.

Got it?

I have been to many zero tolerance seminars and don't particularly like political correctness myself (really the whole thing makes me sick to my stomach), but I dislike bigots of any sort even more. Have an opinion, that is fine; don't like something, hey that's cool, too. But don't throw your crap all over somebody just to have something to say.

I may seem a little sensitive in this point, but lately at my work, I have been catching flak for being Buddhist. I try to convert no one and ask no one to step from Christ, but some feel the need to tell me I'm going to burn in hell if I don't convert. This really p****s me off. So, if I'm hard on anyone, excuse me.

So I think the answer to the question is: No, I don't think chess itself implies anything sexist or racist, but has only become a reflection of the lives that we, as humans, have chosen to live.  The game has evolved so much since its inception, and so have we as people.  However, I think anybody whose job it is to write for money will find and publicize any questions that will rouse the feathers of others.  F-ing journalists...

Actually, neither black, nor white are colors.  Just being facetious. ;-)

It is plain wrong to say chess is in sexist because of the supposed gender of the (inanimate) pieces. The associated gender of inanimate chess pieces is not universal. The strongest and most influential nation in the last century has been the USSR, now of course a loose association of nations, where the precursor of the queen did not change its gender when that piece did in the West. To this day the piece we know as the queen is still known as something approximating to "advisor" to those who speak Russian. The argument could be posed by Russian speakers that chess is sexist because none of the pieces are female, ignoring the fact that none of the pieces have a definite gender apart from the king, and the title of this piece dates from a time when it was simply an observed fact that rulers were male. This entire argument misses the point that no-one would wish to be a chess piece, and there is no restriction on the gender of the person who moves the pieces, which is much more significant to anyone in their right mind. In fact chess is one of the least sexist of competitive activities, as women are generally not excluded from male competitions. I suspect that the original claim that "someone had said" that chess was sexist and racist could easily be apocryphal anyway. The only sort of person I can imagine doing that is an Internet troll on alt.chess or whereever. And that person (if they existed) has had indirect success beyond their wildest dreams. 

Elroch - In fact chess is one of the least sexist of competitive activities, as women are generally not excluded from male competitions.

I fully agree. Chess is more open to all kinds of participants than any other game.