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'Police. Step Away From the Chess Table'

cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com

21–30 of 53 posts

Re: 'Police. Step Away From the Chess Table'

#21
post #19

> The tables are behind the gates of the park’s Emerson Playground, which the signs in question state is off limits to adults unaccompanied by minors. I keep rolling this around in my mind. It makes sense but at the some time it doesn't make sense at all. I'm sure it's intended to keep people from kidnapping kids or adults from destroying equipment but I fail to see how it would even be remotely effective at that.

If you're at the playground with your kid, you should not be playing chess. You should be paying attention to your kid. The only people who really should be playing chess are those who aren't there with kids.

Or the ones playing chess with their kids i suppose.

Re: 'Police. Step Away From the Chess Table'

#22
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playgrounds shouldn’t have chessboards if they also have rules prohibiting adults without kids. Stupid planning is responsible for this ridiculous outcome.

Not to out myself as a nerd, but if my history is any indication, some kids play chess. And even checkers.

Sure, but how is that relevant for my argument? Kids and adults enjoy chess and checkers, both should have access to public chessboards, slides and swings are for the most part only enjoyed by and only safe for kids.

Re: 'Police. Step Away From the Chess Table'

#23

> The tables are behind the gates of the park’s Emerson Playground, which the signs in question state is off limits to adults unaccompanied by minors. I keep rolling this around in my mind. It makes sense but at the some time it doesn't make sense at all. I'm sure it's intended to keep people from kidnapping kids or adults from destroying equipment but I fail to see how it would even be remotely effective at that.

Should we really be encouraging children to play chess?

Not only is it terribly violent it is rather anti-american. The monarchy, church and knights all in charge capturing and crushing the pawns to gain territory, not to mention that it pitches black against white.

Re: 'Police. Step Away From the Chess Table'

#24
post #9
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't think this law is related to sex offenses. I think it's related to the fact that adults can easily push children away, and then the taxpayer's money is not being used for the intended purpose. Adults have plenty of places they can go. Kids, not so much. (Similarly, if you're 40 years old, you can't go to the public kindergarten. It's because the program is designed to educate 5-year-olds, not 40-year…

Playgrounds shouldn’t have chessboards if they also have rules prohibiting adults without kids. Stupid planning is responsible for this ridiculous outcome.

I suspect the chessboards and rule came from different generations. During the "Searching for Bobby Fischer" era, the beat cops would probably have gotten to know the regular chessplayers and used them as resources -- i.e., asking if they had noticed strangers in the neighborhood. Nowadays, not so much, apparently.

Re: 'Police. Step Away From the Chess Table'

#25

> The tables are behind the gates of the park’s Emerson Playground, which the signs in question state is off limits to adults unaccompanied by minors. I keep rolling this around in my mind. It makes sense but at the some time it doesn't make sense at all. I'm sure it's intended to keep people from kidnapping kids or adults from destroying equipment but I fail to see how it would even be remotely effective at that.

If I were a gambling man, I would bet on the chess players being homeless. reads article I win.

Re: 'Police. Step Away From the Chess Table'

#26
post #25

> The tables are behind the gates of the park’s Emerson Playground, which the signs in question state is off limits to adults unaccompanied by minors. I keep rolling this around in my mind. It makes sense but at the some time it doesn't make sense at all. I'm sure it's intended to keep people from kidnapping kids or adults from destroying equipment but I fail to see how it would even be remotely effective at that.

If I were a gambling man, I would bet on the chess players being homeless. reads article I win.

The article only specifies that one player is homeless. I don't see why that is relevant, beyond society pushing those at the brink further over it.

Re: 'Police. Step Away From the Chess Table'

#27

"And a police spokesman said that the summonses were part of a larger campaign to clean up the park, driven by complaints from residents about crime. “There’s been an effort over time to address these concerns, and a lot of it begins with very simple innocuous violations such as this,” the spokesman said." Why couldn't this effort instead begin with addressing the crimes that residents were complaining about? If they…

Or they could find some way to legalize the chess-playing so that it's no longer an infraction, no longer a broken window, hence no longer a prelude to more crime. They could redefine the "kid's park" to exclude the chess tables, for instance, so the rule did not apply there.

But honestly, I think the "broken window" reasoning has nothing to do with them breaking the rules and more to do with class. A lot of the chess players are poor, some of them are street people, and a lot of the ones who aren't poor look and dress like the ones who are. The parents look at them with a certain prejudiced eye and think, "These people are not a wholesome element, they are of the street." And the parents fear that criminals and junkies might look at the chess players with the same prejudiced eye and think, "These guys are of the street; they're poor and low-class like me. If they're welcome here, then me and my criminal behavior are welcome here too." So the theory is that parents will stop bringing their kids, and low-grade criminals will start hanging out. Because of the perception of the chess players as a "street" element, basically a conflation of class with criminality, their presence can turn a park sleazy through no fault of theirs, just through the prejudice of other people. And some instinctive, gut-feeling version of that theory is what resulted in the police being tasked to "clean up" the park by evicting the chess players.

That's unfair. Innocent people shouldn't be punished because of how they're perceived by other people, even if that perception is causing real harm.

Re: 'Police. Step Away From the Chess Table'

#28

> The tables are behind the gates of the park’s Emerson Playground, which the signs in question state is off limits to adults unaccompanied by minors. I keep rolling this around in my mind. It makes sense but at the some time it doesn't make sense at all. I'm sure it's intended to keep people from kidnapping kids or adults from destroying equipment but I fail to see how it would even be remotely effective at that.

> "I'm sure it's intended to keep people from kidnapping kids" Not a good job at that - the vast majority of kidnappings (or hell, cases of child abuse in general) are done by people known to the family. The creepy stranger who will swoop in when you turn your back and kidnap your child is 99% a figment of one's imagination.

> The creepy stranger who will swoop in when you turn your back and kidnap your child is 99% a figment of one's imagination.

Exactly. I just didn't say it in those terms because I don't have a source for it handy.

Re: 'Police. Step Away From the Chess Table'

#29
post #26
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were a gambling man, I would bet on the chess players being homeless. reads article I win.

The article only specifies that one player is homeless. I don't see why that is relevant, beyond society pushing those at the brink further over it.

For what it's worth, I was just making an observation, because it struck me as unlikely beyond all speaking off it that somebody would actually be issued a summons for playing chess in a park. That set my brain down the path of "What happens in parks that we don't arrest people for but don't want to encourage?" Oh yeah, that.

I could go either way on the justice/prudential aspect of it. On the one hand, there are a lot of laws that condemn the homeless to essentially permanent low-level conflict with the police. There are justice issues with that. ("The law, in all its majestic equality, forbids the rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges.") On the other hand, I know of public spaces which welcome the homeless with open arms and I know of public spaces which I would enjoy spending time at, and those are disjoint sets. To the extent that the general public being able to enjoy parks is important (which is very, very low on my list of priorities), I (mildly) sympathize with their desires for them to not have homeless people in them.

Re: 'Police. Step Away From the Chess Table'

#30

"And a police spokesman said that the summonses were part of a larger campaign to clean up the park, driven by complaints from residents about crime. “There’s been an effort over time to address these concerns, and a lot of it begins with very simple innocuous violations such as this,” the spokesman said." Why couldn't this effort instead begin with addressing the crimes that residents were complaining about? If they…

I guess this is just a case of cognitive dissonance. The spokesperson realized that what the police did was wrong and instead of admitting it he will make up "reasons" to make everything look alright. This is probably enhanced by it being hard to say "My fellow coworkers made a mistake." and the being part of an institution that works solely on authority.
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