True story:
A few years ago, a black teen National Master was receiving a lot of attention and publicity. Obviously because he was black, not because being a chess NM as a teenage boy is rare (it isn’t).
I was in an elevator with an elderly black lady at the Westgate Hotel in Las Vegas. It was the National Open. She struck up a conversation with me and talked proudly about her grandson the famous chess teen. I had not heard of the kid so I looked up his history when I got to my room.
Some months later at the North American Open he got caught red-handed cheating. He was in a restroom stall consulting Stockfish on his phone during his game against a Chinese teenage Grandmaster. The GM’s dad followed the kid to the restroom and suspected he was cheating and looked into the stall.
All hell broke loose. The black kid and his family went berserk deflecting blame and threatening to sue the tournament organizer and wanting the police to be called on the GM kid’s dad.
Bottom line, nothing was done to the black kid for cheating. I don’t recall if he even forfeited the game. At the minimum, cheating results in an automatic forfeit and getting kicked out of the tournament.
I’m sure it wasn’t the first time the kid cheated. Being black has its privileges in the chess world. Maurice Ashley is a prime example.