CROSSVILLE, TN—Since the United States Chess Federation's (USCF) founding in 1939, every single game played under its sponsorship has begun with the movement of a white piece, but that's about to change. In a huge win for affirmative action, the federation announced yesterday that as of September 1st this year, it will cease the bigoted practice of letting white go first every game.
USCF spokesperson Brook Astley shared more details: "We at the federation are embarrassed it took this long to right such an atrocious wrong. For decades, the black chess pieces have been treated as second class, but from now on the role will be reversed. We are changing the rules so that black will go first for at least the next 79 years to even things out."
Astley cautioned that this change will not be worldwide: "You have to realize that the World Chess Federation (FIDE) does not have plans to adopt this new practice, so that may cause friction in competitions. Still, we at the USCF are very excited about the progressive change."
The announcement has been met with mostly indifference. Although white has traditionally gone first, color is usually assigned to players randomly. Those who play chess admit the change will have no real influence on the game other than making turns confusing for a while until they get used to "black before white."
The next issue the federation plans to tackle is a call to change the piece design so white bishops look less like members of the Ku Kux Klan.