AShould we be expected to sincerely believe, the social climate which produced reporters who strained at length in their headlines to marginalize and defame Mr. Fischer on account of his “autistic traits,” exploiting a disability.. could be anything more than a product of their contemporary social climate? It's time to recognize it is INAPPROPRIATE for the chess world to set before children, around the world, hurtful, discriminatory language which singles out Bobby Fischer for AUTISTIC traits, a target for public mockery and ridicule. If not, how should children learn that it's INAPPROPRIATE to behave like school-yard bullies, cyber-bullying? What is the current Chess Leadership teaching children around the world by their example, every time they refer to a young chess genius who was Autistic as “eccentric” or “temperamental” and the 1001 “adjectives” that marginalize, dehumanize, ostracize, over and over and over and over, again? Fischer was a product of his environment, that he became ANGRY at media and society, instead of reporters, focusing on his gifted qualities, they deliberately chose to seek and focus on any thing negative and trivialize it. If they could find nothing to criticize then they simply “make something up.” Something like this:
Leader-Telegram Eau Claire, Wisconsin July 11, 1972, Tuesday
Wheelchair Ticket Contested
Madison (AP) — Walking in a roadway while pushing another man in a wheelchair got a Portage man a traffic ticket and Monday he was in Dane County Court to fight it at a preliminary hearing.
Madison police reports said David Lawrence pushed the wheelchair down the street for two blocks before officers wrote out a ticket for violating a law prohibiting walking in a roadway.
Assembly man James Wahne of Milwaukee told Judge Michael Torphy Jr. the incident was an example of obstacles the disabled must face in their efforts to get from place to place. Torphy set a trial date of Sept. 1.
Wheelchair Ticket Contested 11 Jul 1972, Tue Leader-Telegram (Eau Claire, Wisconsin) Newspapers.com
Santa Cruz Sentinel Santa Cruz, California Wednesday, July 12, 1972
Negroes Protest Police Prank
Los Angeles (AP) — Policemen involved in the phony story of a woman hitting her common-law husband with a watermelon should be suspended from the police force and apologize to the black community for a hoax, a black city councilman says.
“We spend far too much money in public relations programs … and in police officers salaries for them to act like plain jacka***s,” said Brilly G. Mills, president pro tem of the council.
Mills said Tuesday that the black community “has been the victim of their very poor taste racist joke” and that the incident could seriously hurt relations between black citizens and police.
Police said when two police officers in the 77th Street Division, a largely black area, brought a huge watermelon into the station it touched off an “inside joke” that wound up with a false crime report inadvertently disclosed to the news media.
Negroes Protest Police Prank 12 Jul 1972, Wed Santa Cruz Sentinel (Santa Cruz, California) Newspapers.com
([and while those reports were being reprinted nationwide in earlier papers, it seems that not a soul in the upper echelons of media saw fit, or, had the spine to call the growing story out as RACIST! They never mentioned it, but the story is filled with racist stereotypes.
Needless to add, this was the kind of behavior so typical to expect from police! They thought it was funny to create a false report full up of racist stereotypes.
NORMALIZING 1970s RACISM and DISCRIMINATION.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch St. Louis, Missouri Monday, July 10, 1972
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/79167544/man-injured-by-watermelon/
The Lincoln Star Lincoln, Nebraska Monday, July 10, 1972
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/79229820/melon-choly-girl-sends-boyfriend-to/
“There isn't a seed of truth to it.” wrote one of the racist journalists quoting the racist police, making light humor of blatant racist stereotypes.)
The Times San Mateo, California Tuesday, July 11, 1972
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/79167623/watermelon-beaning-was-a-fake/
Philadelphia Daily News Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, July 11 1972
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/79509461/cops-red-faced-over-watermelon-caper/])
Leader-Telegram Eau Claire, Wisconsin Tuesday, July 11, 1972
'All White' Clause Challenged
Atlantic City, N.J. (AP) — The new national leader of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks says the organization's “all white” membership clause, being challenged at the Elks convention here, is ”an internal matter for determination by the membership.”
Francis M. Smith of Sioux Falls, S.D., made the statement in an interview following his address to the convention as he took over Monday as grand exalted ruler of the Elks.
The convention is expected to vote Thursday on a resolution by the Madison, Wis., lodge calling for deletion of the clause, which was inserted in the organization's clause in 1888.
'All White' Clause Challenged 11 Jul 1972, Tue Leader-Telegram (Eau Claire, Wisconsin) Newspapers.com
These newspaper journalists had the power to speak against such evils, firmly denouncing racism and discrimination, but chose rather to make light of, and “join in”. The same journalists who raked Fischer over coals in international newspapers for obvious, overt traits of Autism Spectrum… and not to mention overt antisemitic ridicule that he kept the Saturday Sabbath and once, while in the lead, had walked out of a tournament because organizers demanded he break the sabbath day… “temperamental!” they declared, because Fischer was devoted to his faith which kept the same Sabbath as adherenths of Judaism. Till this day, certain chess players CONTINUE to repeat, REHASH the degrading insults, PRETENDING their dispicable behavior is acceptable. It's not.
