Posted to her Facebook page from Batumi on 9/23/2018:
"Meeting Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili at the Batumi Chess Olympiad Opening Ceremony! He has very high respect for women in chess, and recognized the Georgian Women Chess Legends later on in the ceremony.
In each of these major events, I get to personally meet with Presidents and Prime Ministers of these countries. Chess Champions are highly respected in countless nations around the world. In the US, even in my hometown St Louis, I am treated like a disease. — in Batumi." [emphasis added]
Perhaps the legal action she brought against the USCF and a number of her critics that nearly bankrupted US Chess has something to do with not being liked in St. Louis? Of course, she neglects to mention that.
The thread title implies her comments are specifically about St Louis, whereas the actual quote is “even in St Louis”. Of course it’s hard to disagree with the substance of your post.
Does make me wonder if she perceives that she is hated on thecWebster campus, which is after all on St Louis.
Since the press on Webster’s accomplishments has been consistently fair, she has little to complain about in that regard. For the most part it seems to me those who didn’t have a lot to do with governance or the direct issues have no problem with her doing what she does best as long as she stays out of US Chess governance.
No doubt her baseless lawsuit against the USCF made her a pariah. It wasn’t just the lawsuit, but the way she and her lawyer basically held the USCF hostage with it by a series of nearly never ending legal strategies designed to make it cost the USCF as much money as possible.
It took me living in the TN/KY area for 15 to 20 years before people stopped treating me like a northerner. I wouldn’t be able to pass for being someone born and bred in the area, but overall, I’ve become far more southern than I was ever was as a northerner growing up in NY. I’ve also lived longer in the south than in NY where I grew up.
I would presume that Susan Polgar felt righteous in her lawsuit, but it’s baffling that she would choose the “burn the bridges down as you cross them” strategy. It’s one thing to file a lawsuit because you feel something happened that needs a civil judgement, but to do it in such a way to cause the defendant to spend as much money as possible in defending themselves from whatever accusations they’re accused of, show an extreme animosity toward the defendant. Susan was basically saying she wanted to punish the USCF regardless of who won.
She didn’t realize that when you try and punish an organization, your hurting all the members of that organization, and the members don’t forget stuff like that.
