One Big Chess Game by Adisa Banjoko

One Big Chess Gameby Adisa Banjoko, Founder Hip-Hop Chess Federation | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)
Let these beats play, as I slay dragons from Sicily/ My Yugoslav attack broke his back took Italy/ Like Hannibal breaking a cannibals mandible, yo/ Confused ‘cause you’re stuck in the matrix?  Understandable - The Bishop, One Big Chess Game


My first few days teaching life strategies to at-risk and gang impacted youth using chess, I met three Latino boys. The first was heavyset with black marble eyes, dark curly hair and a body like Baby Huey. The second was super thin with reddish brown Aztec skin, small beady eyes and an unusually slim face. The third, at first glance you might miss really easy. He had an average build, average height but a very sweet smile. Oddly though, his eyes had no emotion- like a snake. It was deeply unsettling. That’s what I remember about meeting him for the first time. I recall going home and telling my wife “I think I met a killer today.”
That year Baby Huey and I became real close. He was fascinated by science, and good at it. But as we approached summer things changed. Baby Huey lived in a bad area. I had no contact with him over the summer and there was gang turf conflict all over his hood. When school was back in, Baby Huey returned a banger. The boy I knew was gone. I lost him to the streets.
A few months later Slim Face caught a murder case.  I never really connected with Slim Face. He never cared about my ideas. He just wanted to get out of class and kick it with his other homies.  But Snake Eyes, he quietly thrived.
We played chess a lot. Slowly Snake Eyes opened up a little, but not much. I knew his family  had some gang ties. Snake Eyes said he wanted something different for himself. He never allowed me to take his picture. Any time photos were being taken he would always pull me aside and remind me that he was thankful that I was helping him, but to never show his picture.    
One day, Snake Eyes beat one of the algebra teachers in chess. The teacher was hot under the cardigan that day. He went so far as to accuse Snake Eyes of cheating. But I video taped the whole game and exonerated Snake Eyes. The teacher was enraged that he lost to a boy written off as a thug in a game as intellectually rich as chess. It was hard not to laugh.  
I had his back the whole way, and so did some others. Snake Eyes made it happen though. He graduated on time to the shock of many in the faculty. As a graduation present I got him some Timberland boots and the librarian gave him a chess set and some other small gifts. After graduation, the librarian came to me looking very shaken. The boots, the board and everything else we had given him were in a box with a piece of paper on top of it. The paper had gang tags all over it. Snake Eyes had chosen the streets.
I started the Hip-Hop Chess Federationin 2006 to help kids struggling in school live more full lives.  Our organization fuses music, chess and martial arts to promote unity, strategy and nonviolence. When we began, few understood my mission or understood the interconnected histories and philosophies of Hip-Hop, chess and the martial arts here in America. Despite many studies that illustrate the power of chess on the human mind, I still oddly get resistance about why American schools need chess now more than ever. But it cannot be the chess of the past where we sterilize minds with algebraic notation and tactical approach alone. We cannot let them define their existence solely on their chess rating. It must be a chess game that oxygenates the mind with survival skills. Skills that allow it to flourish in real time.  
Throwing kids into “the black and white jungle,” as Garry Kasparov so eloquently described the game of kings, helps youth develop short and long-term planning. It also helps them learn how to cultivate and defend their ideas. It guides them to know the wisdom of when to retreat, and learn how to finish what they started. It gives them the time to figure out how to best hold a position, and discover how to recover from loss. These things and more are explored in almost every chess match.
Today more than ever American children need to develop strategic thinking.
In my comings and goings, I have begun to  see the world as my students see it. Each morning I tighten my cap as I stride beneath the serene navy sky, watching the moon set on the city of San Francisco.  I ascend quickly, revolted by the littered, urine caked stairwells of the BART station. Alert for the slightest movements beneath the shadow of leaves, I walk along sidewalks guiding me through San Francisco's venomous Mission District. Random, deadly violence is common.  I’m on my on my way to work. Prostitutes and heroin addicts sprint from beneath the creeping rays of sun and the police cars, with an equal hatred for both.
It is under this same sun that the kids I hope to engage seek to thrive. The great potential within the acorn of the mighty oak is rendered irrelevant under the of broken promises and initiatives. Every week there is a new cool school district buzzword meant to help parents and citizens understand the latest stratagem for scholastic achievement. No matter how much I try, I feel our efforts are nothing more than just a cruel joke educators play on themselves, as if they’ve honestly tried. These are pre-packaged by well-meaning but grossly ineffective administrators who are either ignorant of the way they run, or assassins who profit off the minds of the young.  To be clear, in what I’ve observed most teachers are not to be blamed. Teachers are underfunded and under-supported people with very little outside help.
We can argue all day about who is at fault for the state of American public education. What no one can argue against though, is that chess helps lift math and reading comprehension skills as well as character.
In chess, one thing you learn quickly is that one mistake can cost you. Blunders on the board serve as the cornerstones of checkmate. I’m not sure how many mistakes the average player can make before the game is over. Depending on the depth of the blunder, they may never recover. Even a series of seemingly small blunders often leads one to a predictable death. On city streets, blunders cost young boys and girls their lives all the time.
In the song Iron Age by Ka and Roc Marciano, Roc says, “I can’t afford to be or move careless/ Niggas will put that Mac-10 to your spare ribs.” Sounds like chess doesn’t it? Inattentiveness on the streets will get you killed. Wearing the wrong colors, being in an area after dark, or using the wrong words can get you killed quickly on today's streets. But it’s always been like that, and chess has always taught us that lesson.
Only a few bars earlier Roc reflects on more productive things his wisdom could have accomplished “Honestly, I should have went to Stanford/ But what I learned scrambling wasn’t in the pamphlet.” How tragic that despite his strong mind, after having his soul ground against the poverty and violence of Brownsville, Brooklyn that he found himself embedded in the street life; also how his street knowledge seemed to clash with some of the practical wisdom college claims it has dominion over. Chess teaches us to constantly seek a great advantage with what they’ve already been given. It teaches personal responsibility and ownership of one’s actions.
Most people believe that the martial arts are paths taken by people who seek or enjoy violence. Shaolin Monks (revered by groups like the Wu-Tang Clan) are celebrated for their choice of nonviolence. Few make the direct correlation between their martial arts training and their practice of nonviolence. The demanding physical and mental endurance of kung-fu and other martial arts systems gives the practitioner patience, the potential consequences of conflict and emotional self mastery. Just like chess.
One of the things that differentiates what is known as Gracie (aka Brazilian) Jiu Jitsu from other martial arts is that there is a hierarchy of positional dominance. This focus on positional dominance, like chess, often leads one’s opponent to a chokehold or joint lock - like a checkmate. In chess and Jiu Jitsu, it is knowledge that gains one victory over innate gifts.
I spent the bulk of the next Summer thinking about Snake Eyes. Was all the work for nothing? Was he playing us the entire time? Was he even alive? I went back to school with a hollow heart, unsure of anything I was trying to teach kids. I figured I’d head to the library and talk to the librarian about how Snake Eyes cut ties so clean without either of us seeing it coming.

Staring at my suede Tims shuffling down the hallway, I bumped right into Snake Eyes. “Sup Adisa!” he said with eyes full of life. For the first time I saw light in his eyes. “Man I just wanted to thank you for being my friend. I appreciate you helping me graduate. I forgot my shoes and everything in the back after graduation. I was surprised it was still here. I gotta job man doing construction. I love it.” It turned out the paper was something he drew long before he met me. I found it in the trash in the library. My heart soared.
Endeavors like Hip-Hop, chess and martial arts help people learn to trust their own decisions, learn a respect for structure and how to be independent thinkers. Martial arts gives us a place to test our physical and emotional limits and face direct fears down. Hip-Hop lifts our spirits and can be a friendly reinforcement of ideas and ethics. On the streets one extra second of reflection on potential consequences can be the difference between war and peace, a misdemeanor or a felony and life and death. It’s that real. In the late 80’s and early 90’s  African American youth used to rap music to remind themselves that they descended from kings and queens.  If life is indeed one big chess game, lets teach our youth how to be kings and queens in their daily lives. 
The connections between Hip-Hop, chess and martial arts are as authentic as they are enlightening. The Street Games Vol. 1 Mixtape has several other songs that correspond to articles that illustrate our approach to life strategies. They include Chess Clock, 64 Squares in the Cipher, and A Technical Flow: Chess and Jiu Jitsu. Understand, the fusion of music, chess and martial arts is not a blanket solution for the many issues that our children face. But I know it can do much more than we have given them credit for. Our organization and our methodologies will be explained in greater depth in my upcoming book Live The Game in May 2014.

For more information on the Hip-Hop Chess Federation visit www.facebook.com/hiphopchess or listen to Adisa Banjoko’s podcast at www.bishopchronicles.com