As the Chess World Championship in London 2018 proved so conclusively, when you have everything to lose, humans more often than not will play things safe and not dare to dare. In the weeks since winning and retaining the World Championship, the highest rated player of all time, Magnus Carlsen, has admitted that his frustration in not being able to play to his potential for some time now has led him to admit he's not sure he will be defending his title again in 2020; a complaint you will not be hearing from a digital chess playing entity anytime soon, at least not in present iterations.
"When you reach a certain level, there is too much at stake to really let loose," (Magnus Carlsen)
At the top flight now, very rarely will players commit themselves fully to ideas which balance on a knife edge, walking the fine line between foolish hubris or artistic genius.
For this chess fan it has now become an obvious fact that watching the ideas produced by AlphaZero and Leela, neural network chess playing entities that feel no pressure, feel no embarrassment in losing and take no pleasure from playing perfectly when they do, has undoubtedly had the effect of injecting chess with a level of drama reminiscent of the Romantic period, where dynamic flourishes would render the chessboard a scene from a ballet rather than the grinding battle of attrition found in a military campaign.
Watching Grandmaster Daniel King become giddy like a child, declaring "This is unbelievable chess!", as he witnesses yet another move which for him, in the words of the wise sage Vizzini, was moments ago literally 'Inconceivable', heralds I think a rebirth of chess and further reaffirms the significance of this new age of dynamic playing that has begun. Humans, it seems, are accepting their role now as keen and content spectators, appreciators of games and other pursuits played by players who play games the way they ought be played.
AlphaZero has come to share the good news, that material means nothing when you have superior space and piece activity. Dynamism is back. Chess has become Art again in the truest sense of the word. And this is what the chess world has desperately needed to hear for some time now.
I'm really glad John Barnes has always been a bit of a motormouth, able to squeeze a large amount of words into a short space of time. So it was nice to see him on national TV, outlining the scale of systemic racism reach in the UK with unapologetic conviction, neither hurried to respond nor unnecessarily provoked by loaded questions.
You can paint a damning picture of how bad things are in this country all you like though, and we can all agree how terrible the state of things might be, but I still feel like the conversation we really need to get in motion is the one about how society goes about being proactive tackling racism without it's method to do so creating new problems or inflaming existing ones.
John talks about the need to "change the perception of the average black person in the street". The man's not asking for much is he?!! Who would or could even achieve that exactly? Who's responsibility is it to change the perception of the average black person in the street? And if the answer is everyone's, then do we focus on the aspects that are best suited to the strengths we possess individually or the privileges we get as members of the various groups and collectives we belong to? But beyond the assignment of responsibility, who's sat there, revved up on standby thinking to themselves "I'm proper up for changing the perception of the average black person in the street, me!"?
Some people will argue that simply changing the way something appears changes nothing fundamentally. A change of perception in this instance being nothing more than a veneer laid over the festering wound of racism that will soon rot itself if it fails to contain the problem it hopes to mask. Intentionally changing the way something is perceived in the hope that any immediate positive results become contagious and spread throughout the system sounds a lot like putting faith in a placebo. Bit risky though. Sometimes putting on a brave face can help you to convince yourself that you are actually brave, and after a week of wearing the mask and getting on with life you might find it quite difficult to recall how feeling scared felt 7 days ago; perhaps because repeatedly seeing the mask whenever you looked in the mirror normalised the act of seeing yourself brave. But this strategy at a national level could go all over the show, and placebos don't tend to work well against established pathological conditions.
Others still will insist that black people are represented fairly and accurately in society. The way they are portrayed is the way they actually are, and should they wish to see a change in how others see them, the responsibility is squarely on black people themselves to make it happen. To achieve such a feat at the national level no doubt would require extensive use of social media to transmit a warmer, more convivial perception of the average black person. Pleasant. Affable. This fairer perspective would eventually win the hearts of all haters and baiters from Lands End to John O'Groats.
But it's impossible (in 2018 at least) to have total control over your public perception once you exist in the minds of others, which is why the domain of public perception is more like a battleground where a royal rumble of characterisations of you fight it out to gain ground and assert their influence. If the media aren't fond of you, don't be surprised to see them using apache helicopters to airlift in weapons to supply the characterisation of you which will do you the most harm, before scuttling off quietly back to base, leaving you to fight to save your true identity from being mauled to death by impostors.
So if I'm understanding John Barnes fully, what black people need is a way to counter balance the endless tide of subtly demeaning narratives circulating around us, designed by those in power to ensure that for black people the clouds are the limit, and never the sky. Black people need their own means of perception production pumping out stories able to convince them that striving to go beyond is never a futile pursuit, it is always worthwhile. What black people need is a black Rupert Murdoch! Hahaha!!! Sorry, got carried away there!
The only idea I could come up with that could remotely help John was if I changed my name to 'The Average Black Person in the Street' and then won Countdown or learned advanced music theory and then wrote an amazing symphony or award-winning play, people might say to each other "Hey, the average black person in the street is very smart isn't he!" or "The average black person in the street has a real flair for clarinet arrangements don't you think?". Whatever I was able to excel at, people would tell their friends about and so inadvertently, over time, I would be subconsciously reinforcing a perception of the average black person in the street being highly intelligent and capable, which is already the case, but more people could know about it. Deffo worth a punt if all else fails!
