(Article originally published in The Point 18/01/2021)
Idea. A remnant of a monarchical universe with nauseating sexist and patriarchal overtones, a chessboard condenses all inequalities and all discriminations. Chess is based on a racist and overly binary partition of the world. Figuring society into juxtaposed black and white squares borders on segregationist abjection. Opposing racialized binary teams necessarily feeds ethnic resentment. Bringing to life, even for a so-called game, strategies aimed simply at protecting a dominant male (the "king"), recalls the darkest hours of our current events. In short, we must act!
HOW TO USE. First of all, the pieces need to be renamed. Some will even have to be eliminated. Then, the rules of the game need to be revised. As for the eight pawns, the elegant solution is to call them, as is now customary, pawns. For the fools – a designation from another age – we will obviously use “people with intellectual disabilities” because fool and fools, or fools sound inclusively incorrect. The problem is more complicated for the knights. Choosing knights would not do justice to the speciesist problem posed. Everyone will have noticed: the said knights are in reality horses. So we will rename these pieces, either horse or mare, or even, more precisely in writing, horses. For the king and queen (no, but really, what a scandal!) the expression parent 1 and parent 2 shows the way. Besides, “one” and “two” could ultimately suffice. The towers, as patent phallocratic symbols, would disappear. Replaced, for example, by two giraffes. From the point of view of the rules of the game, nothing naturally legitimizes different movement rights. Undifferentiation would therefore prevail. On the championship side, mixed play is essential. Each game must be mixed because, unlike other sports disciplines, no gender consideration could prohibit the imposition of strict parity. Each session would therefore pit a master and a mistress against each other. Finally, the indigenous perspective requires an essential revision: the end of the domination of whites (who always play the first move). The best option, more "colorblind", is that of pieces of all colors, on a chessboard that is itself rainbow. Reforming age-old rules is certainly complicated. But it is at this price that we will change society. In any case, after dealing with chess, of course, comes the turn of checkers (whose name alone is provocative). Then the game of snakes and ladders (a degrading competition). Then, finally, all the norms and habits.
The stylistic exercise does not defeat and mac inclusive logorrhea. It aims first to smile at grotesque exaggerations, the scope of which should not be minimized. Pastiching the extremes of inclusive gibberish allows us to underline its inanity.