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Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season
In his earlier work, David Shields came across as a fairly traditional storyteller. Even Dead Languages, his fictional rumination on a stutterer's tongue-tied existence, was essentially a coming-of-age story. But he began to show his true colors with Remote, a fractured, full-body immersion in media culture. This deeply amusing work of nonfiction revealed the author to be a neurotic, navel-gazing cousin of Nicholson Baker. Now comes Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season, whose putative topic--professional basketball--would seem to return Shields to his extroverted roots. (His first novel, in fact, revolved around a college basketball player.) Yet this is ultimately as postmodernist a work as its predecessor, and it takes us not only into the author's heart but his boudoir. Black Planet's fusion of public spectacle with private mortification makes it his funniest book to date.
A word of explanation: technically speaking, Black Planet is a chronicle of the Seattle SuperSonics during the 1994-1995 season. Since the team blew its shot at the playoffs, there's no chance for an uplifting grand finale. Yet Shields had a different sort of hoop dream in mind from the very beginning. "The NBA," he writes, "is a place where, without ever acknowledging it--and because it's never acknowledged, it's that much more potent and telling--white fans and black players enact and quietly explode virtually every racial issue and tension in the culture at large. Race, the league's taboo topic, is the league's true subject." It's the author's true subject, too, and he goes at it from every angle--attending games, recording call-in radio shows, and making some abortive attempts to cozy up to the players. Point guard Gary Payton is his true Penelope. Why? Well, his motormouth style does suggest an "indivisibility... of playing and talking, of life and language." But more to the point, he offers a handy tabula rasa for Shields's fantasy life, a trash-talking personification of bad behavior: "Which is why, in Seattle the Good, I so love Gary Payton. He's not really bad, he's only pretend-bad--I know that--but he allows me to fantasize about being bad."
If Shields were simply slapping society on the wrist for its half-submerged racism, Black Planet would wear out its welcome in the first quarter. But he's consistently hardest on himself, so the book becomes not only a social critique but a critique of social critiques, cutting the ground from under itself in an infinite and entertaining loop-the-loop. Shields may not be the first writer to transform a fan's notes into literary gold--Frederick Exley beat him to the punch--but he's the most rigorously intelligent one in a long, long time. Swish! --James Marcus
226 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 19, 1999
6 people are currently reading
239 people want to read
About the author
David Shields
77 books264 followersDavid Shields is the author of fourteen books, including Reality Hunger (Knopf, 2010), which was named one of the best books of 2010 by more than thirty publications. GQ called it "the most provocative, brain-rewiring book of 2010"; the New York Times called it "a mind-bending manifesto." His previous book, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead (Knopf, 2008), was a New York Times bestseller. His other books include Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Remote: Reflections on Life in the Shadow of Celebrity, winner of the PEN/Revson Award; and Dead Languages: A Novel, winner of the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award. His essays and stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Yale Review, Believer, Village Voice, Salon, Slate, McSweeney's, and Utne Reader; he's written reviews for the New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times Book Review, Boston Globe, and Philadelphia Inquirer. His work has been translated into fifteen languages.
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March 15, 2010
This book remains one of my all-time least favorites. Here is the review I wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle when it came out:
A Basketball Diary Most Foul
Writer's examination of race and the NBA falls far short
REVIEWED BY Steve Kettmann
Sunday, December 26, 1999
BLACK PLANET Facing Race During an NBA Season By David Shields Crown; 223 pages; $23
No matter how admirable his novels and collection of stories might be, the David Shields we get to know in ``Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season,'' a diary-style account of a Seattle SuperSonics season, emerges as the worst sort of con man, one who cons himself into believing he's not conning us.
The problem is not so much the hubris of a writer who is not black taking on race and the National Basketball Association. What makes this book so excruciating is its failure to do more than scratch the surface, a failure that must explain delaying so long before publishing an account from five seasons ago.
Shields' worship of flashy, trash-talking guard Gary Payton provides good moments, but it feels as if he is killing time with interminable (5-year-old!) game recaps and other fluff before returning to his real subject. ``I seem to need to constantly try to translate Gary's actions into words, make him somehow understandable to me, make him mine,'' he writes.
Shields shows up at a charity event where Payton is playing pool, stands near the table and congratulates himself when he picks up the cue ball and hands it back to Payton, responding to Payton's ``thanks'' with silence, not ``you're welcome,'' which he thinks would be uncool.
Any charm such damning revelation offers fades before Shields' ever- smug outlook.
Later, Shields decides he's too good to sit next to a bowling-alley employee he has offered to sell one of his season tickets to (``I'm a snob''), and instead of calling to offer the poor fellow a reasonable excuse, he pulls the lame move of faxing him the rejection -- and even admits it's lame, saying he's a coward to do it.
Always he ladles out self-congratulatory prose. Of German Detlef Schrempf, he writes, ``In him is gathered the reverb of a racist society cordoning off one arena in which the people it has oppressed will succeed.'' He loves this line so much he repeats it later, blithely willing to jam a European into the American black-white dichotomy.
As if to prove that he's past hope, Shields often discusses conjugal relations with his wife, Laurie, and describes a night in bed during which he has to fantasize about basketball players.
To anyone not giddy over ``facing'' a tough subject such as the ubiquity of race as a subtext of NBA life, the tone- deaf gratuitousness of this and similar revelations should register like the thump-thump-thump that tells you you're drifting out of your highway lane. But not Shields.
It's impossible to fathom whom he sees as his audience. To virtually any black person, his Andy Rooneyesque, did-you-ever-wonder meditations about racism in sports will be self-evident. The rest of us mostly shake our heads in horror at how pathetic white- liberal guilt can sound. Again and again, Shields feels guilty and then gets over it. Again and again, mock- profound musings on sneaker commercials and the like are presented as if they will rock our worlds.
Foes of Volvo liberalism could use the book to mock writers like Shields, who raise points to reveal their own higher consciousnesses without actually doing anything. Shields brings a neighbor to a Sonics game and is dismayed at his ``bizarre shucking-and-jiving routine'' that's offensive enough to prompt a black man one row down to leave. So what is Shields' response? Absolutely nothing.
The author is ``half-tempted'' to run after the offended man but prefers to look at the press row and seethe over being denied accreditation. Back home, his wife gives him a figurative shake of the shoulders that should not have been necessary. ``Laurie asks why I didn't say anything to Richard when he went into his shucking-and-jiving routine, and I don't have an answer,'' he writes.
Anyone serious about raising the flag of racism has a responsibility to dig into the topic with enough enterprise to ease the reader toward fresh insight. Shields fails to do this.
Much of the thin volume has him listening to sports talk radio, passing on the quotes and adding his interpretation. Such talk is notoriously banal, yet Shields carries on as if he were breaking down ``Ulysses.'' A caller describes a Sonics player as ``a keel on a sailboat''; that is, a steadying influence. Shields claims (unbelievably) to be ``fascinated'' by such talk, which he claims (even more unbelievably) to find dehumanizing.
The Sonics deny him access for his book, a natural choice since a similar project had been allowed the previous year. Shields whines about not being credentialed, a subject even his sportswriter father is unlikely to find interesting. He buys a season-ticket package and always tells how much he sells his tickets for when he sits on press row, where he does such annoying things as cheering and reading over the shoulders of sportswriters on deadline.
Most writers doing a book on a season would try to gain access by writing for interim publications to show their seriousness. Shields is too good for this. He tells the team PR director that he needs to be credentialed more than the two games per month they're giving him so he can write his ``monthly'' articles for the Seattle Weekly, although he actually waits well into the season before writing anything. ``She says she'll get back to me,'' he writes. ``My bad faith equals her bad faith, neither of which can ever get talked about.''
This highfalutin tone is all too typical. The PR director's ``bad faith'' is the result of Shields' half-baked approach, which should be obvious even to a tourist from academia. He confesses to be ``masquerading as a journalist'' but still expects everyone to come to him.
The result is a book nearly impossible to read and one that proves its point: Americans really must be inept at discussing race if a work as unrewarding as this can find its way into print.
Steve Kettmann writes regularly on sports for Salon.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi...
This article appeared on page RV - 9 of the San Francisco Chronicle
A Basketball Diary Most Foul
Writer's examination of race and the NBA falls far short
REVIEWED BY Steve Kettmann
Sunday, December 26, 1999
BLACK PLANET Facing Race During an NBA Season By David Shields Crown; 223 pages; $23
No matter how admirable his novels and collection of stories might be, the David Shields we get to know in ``Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season,'' a diary-style account of a Seattle SuperSonics season, emerges as the worst sort of con man, one who cons himself into believing he's not conning us.
The problem is not so much the hubris of a writer who is not black taking on race and the National Basketball Association. What makes this book so excruciating is its failure to do more than scratch the surface, a failure that must explain delaying so long before publishing an account from five seasons ago.
Shields' worship of flashy, trash-talking guard Gary Payton provides good moments, but it feels as if he is killing time with interminable (5-year-old!) game recaps and other fluff before returning to his real subject. ``I seem to need to constantly try to translate Gary's actions into words, make him somehow understandable to me, make him mine,'' he writes.
Shields shows up at a charity event where Payton is playing pool, stands near the table and congratulates himself when he picks up the cue ball and hands it back to Payton, responding to Payton's ``thanks'' with silence, not ``you're welcome,'' which he thinks would be uncool.
Any charm such damning revelation offers fades before Shields' ever- smug outlook.
Later, Shields decides he's too good to sit next to a bowling-alley employee he has offered to sell one of his season tickets to (``I'm a snob''), and instead of calling to offer the poor fellow a reasonable excuse, he pulls the lame move of faxing him the rejection -- and even admits it's lame, saying he's a coward to do it.
Always he ladles out self-congratulatory prose. Of German Detlef Schrempf, he writes, ``In him is gathered the reverb of a racist society cordoning off one arena in which the people it has oppressed will succeed.'' He loves this line so much he repeats it later, blithely willing to jam a European into the American black-white dichotomy.
As if to prove that he's past hope, Shields often discusses conjugal relations with his wife, Laurie, and describes a night in bed during which he has to fantasize about basketball players.
To anyone not giddy over ``facing'' a tough subject such as the ubiquity of race as a subtext of NBA life, the tone- deaf gratuitousness of this and similar revelations should register like the thump-thump-thump that tells you you're drifting out of your highway lane. But not Shields.
It's impossible to fathom whom he sees as his audience. To virtually any black person, his Andy Rooneyesque, did-you-ever-wonder meditations about racism in sports will be self-evident. The rest of us mostly shake our heads in horror at how pathetic white- liberal guilt can sound. Again and again, Shields feels guilty and then gets over it. Again and again, mock- profound musings on sneaker commercials and the like are presented as if they will rock our worlds.
Foes of Volvo liberalism could use the book to mock writers like Shields, who raise points to reveal their own higher consciousnesses without actually doing anything. Shields brings a neighbor to a Sonics game and is dismayed at his ``bizarre shucking-and-jiving routine'' that's offensive enough to prompt a black man one row down to leave. So what is Shields' response? Absolutely nothing.
The author is ``half-tempted'' to run after the offended man but prefers to look at the press row and seethe over being denied accreditation. Back home, his wife gives him a figurative shake of the shoulders that should not have been necessary. ``Laurie asks why I didn't say anything to Richard when he went into his shucking-and-jiving routine, and I don't have an answer,'' he writes.
Anyone serious about raising the flag of racism has a responsibility to dig into the topic with enough enterprise to ease the reader toward fresh insight. Shields fails to do this.
Much of the thin volume has him listening to sports talk radio, passing on the quotes and adding his interpretation. Such talk is notoriously banal, yet Shields carries on as if he were breaking down ``Ulysses.'' A caller describes a Sonics player as ``a keel on a sailboat''; that is, a steadying influence. Shields claims (unbelievably) to be ``fascinated'' by such talk, which he claims (even more unbelievably) to find dehumanizing.
The Sonics deny him access for his book, a natural choice since a similar project had been allowed the previous year. Shields whines about not being credentialed, a subject even his sportswriter father is unlikely to find interesting. He buys a season-ticket package and always tells how much he sells his tickets for when he sits on press row, where he does such annoying things as cheering and reading over the shoulders of sportswriters on deadline.
Most writers doing a book on a season would try to gain access by writing for interim publications to show their seriousness. Shields is too good for this. He tells the team PR director that he needs to be credentialed more than the two games per month they're giving him so he can write his ``monthly'' articles for the Seattle Weekly, although he actually waits well into the season before writing anything. ``She says she'll get back to me,'' he writes. ``My bad faith equals her bad faith, neither of which can ever get talked about.''
This highfalutin tone is all too typical. The PR director's ``bad faith'' is the result of Shields' half-baked approach, which should be obvious even to a tourist from academia. He confesses to be ``masquerading as a journalist'' but still expects everyone to come to him.
The result is a book nearly impossible to read and one that proves its point: Americans really must be inept at discussing race if a work as unrewarding as this can find its way into print.
Steve Kettmann writes regularly on sports for Salon.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi...
This article appeared on page RV - 9 of the San Francisco Chronicle
June 19, 2010
David Shields keeps an intensely personal journal during the Sonics' 94 season. Shields is obsessed with the sport of basketball, the racial implications of the overwhelmingly white audience, and specifically obsessed with Gary Payton. As a Portland resident and fan in the late 90s, I can relate to the unique and absurd theater that is NW basketball, so I was drawn to this book.
Shields often cites usenet conversations as he keeps up with the souls & thoughts of the fan. The book was written in 1994, but pre-internet, but published in 1999, so Shields is missing the context & immediate access to culture the internet allows us. For instance, at one point late in the season when it's obvious that the Sonics are unravelling, Payton quotes an E-40 lyric "If if was a fifth, we'd all be drunk." Shields doesn't imagine it's a hip-hop lyric (did Payton come up with that himself? Could he be more of a genius than I already thought?), even though Shields is entirely aware of the way Payton uses language so that one sentence delivers different messages to different audiences, he's got no way to find out what those messages are.
Gary Payton today, I think, would simply be more like Rasheed Wallace (who makes a cameo in the book!), simply not talking to the press, since the ubiquity of secondary sources has made this kind of communication virtually impossible (cf the Awl's breakdown of Jay-Z's lyrics). Throughout Black Planet I was reminded of Nick Hornby's musings on class in Fever Pitch, but I would hope that a movie of this book would be made by someone more like Cassavettes than the Farrelly Brothers (who stripped all that was interesting out of what became a Fallon/Barrymore star vehicle).
Shields' writing on his relationship with his wife & daughter was wonderful, as was his tete a tete with "ma cherie," the Sonics director of media relations Cheryl White (see her "Spoke" profile! http://www.spoke.com/info/pEggupB/Che... ) I also wonder how Shields felt about the SuperSonics leaving town for Oklahoma City.
When I started this book, I was only interested in the topic (race and sports) not the author. But I'm taken enough with his voice and way of thinking that I will read his new book (Reality Hunger).
Shields often cites usenet conversations as he keeps up with the souls & thoughts of the fan. The book was written in 1994, but pre-internet, but published in 1999, so Shields is missing the context & immediate access to culture the internet allows us. For instance, at one point late in the season when it's obvious that the Sonics are unravelling, Payton quotes an E-40 lyric "If if was a fifth, we'd all be drunk." Shields doesn't imagine it's a hip-hop lyric (did Payton come up with that himself? Could he be more of a genius than I already thought?), even though Shields is entirely aware of the way Payton uses language so that one sentence delivers different messages to different audiences, he's got no way to find out what those messages are.
Gary Payton today, I think, would simply be more like Rasheed Wallace (who makes a cameo in the book!), simply not talking to the press, since the ubiquity of secondary sources has made this kind of communication virtually impossible (cf the Awl's breakdown of Jay-Z's lyrics). Throughout Black Planet I was reminded of Nick Hornby's musings on class in Fever Pitch, but I would hope that a movie of this book would be made by someone more like Cassavettes than the Farrelly Brothers (who stripped all that was interesting out of what became a Fallon/Barrymore star vehicle).
Shields' writing on his relationship with his wife & daughter was wonderful, as was his tete a tete with "ma cherie," the Sonics director of media relations Cheryl White (see her "Spoke" profile! http://www.spoke.com/info/pEggupB/Che... ) I also wonder how Shields felt about the SuperSonics leaving town for Oklahoma City.
When I started this book, I was only interested in the topic (race and sports) not the author. But I'm taken enough with his voice and way of thinking that I will read his new book (Reality Hunger).
December 9, 2021
During the 1994-95 season, the essayist and writer David Shields followed the Seattle Supersonics, then led by the playing duo Shawn Kemp-Gary Payton, under the coaching of George Karl, and bouncing off their traumatic playoffs defeat against the Denver Nuggets the preceding year. Amateurs will appreciate: here's a very good read about basketball.
The interest of the book, though, resides elsewhere. Written as a diary, 'Black Planet' purports to be a reflexion upon racism in NBA.
The thing is, indeed, if the vast majority of coaches, referees, managers, journalists, critics, and, even, broadcasters, are White (at least back then, I don't know as of now...?) the majority of the players, them, are Black. In a USA still deeply marked by racial segregation's heritage, and where African-Americans may feel like a nation within a nation, David Shields (who is White) sees here an example of 'commensalism' (yes, he applies the term to sports...) between races.
Reading this won't give you much of a clue as to why so many players are Black (besides the expected explanations, that is), but it will reveals interesting tensions nevertheless. Black and White struggle to communicate, don't perceive sports in the same way, and are, then, like on two different planets. The perspective of the author itself, in fact, is actually quite eloquent. Being a fan of Gary Payton, he dedicates a lot of pages to the player (too many?), and, if this gives at first the impression that we have here the meandering of a guy wobbling in fetishistic admiration, it quickly becomes apparent that such approach wants in fact to be nailing the issue right on the head. Here's a White man not only admiring the athletic bodies of multimillionaires young Black men with a cool attitude, but, also, who purports to expose, through his own fantasies, the ambivalence of racial relations within the NBA... If, at this point, you're thinking something along the line of 'what, the, fuck?!', well, welcome!
I personally thought that most of it was a lot of bullocks, telling more about him as a person than sports fans as a whole. I mean, at one point he even imagines Payton having sex with his wife! I doubt that such homoerotic outlook, served by cuckold fantasies -the old clichés of the Black stallion and the snow bunny- born out of his own insecurities (I bet he doesn't have a body as fit-looking as professional athletes, for a start...) are representative of why people love the game! Maybe, just maybe, he is the one with some racist problems although not knowing...?
Having said that, there are interesting reflexions about how greedy White business people exploit unscrupulously such Black athletes for entertainment purposes. When it comes to race, the NBA may definitely be a complex system which, I guess, one has to be American to fully understand (I am not, and it flew over my head).
Whether you like basketball or are interested in racial relations in America, here's a book which won't fail to cause controversy... or ridicule. Up to you.
The interest of the book, though, resides elsewhere. Written as a diary, 'Black Planet' purports to be a reflexion upon racism in NBA.
The thing is, indeed, if the vast majority of coaches, referees, managers, journalists, critics, and, even, broadcasters, are White (at least back then, I don't know as of now...?) the majority of the players, them, are Black. In a USA still deeply marked by racial segregation's heritage, and where African-Americans may feel like a nation within a nation, David Shields (who is White) sees here an example of 'commensalism' (yes, he applies the term to sports...) between races.
Reading this won't give you much of a clue as to why so many players are Black (besides the expected explanations, that is), but it will reveals interesting tensions nevertheless. Black and White struggle to communicate, don't perceive sports in the same way, and are, then, like on two different planets. The perspective of the author itself, in fact, is actually quite eloquent. Being a fan of Gary Payton, he dedicates a lot of pages to the player (too many?), and, if this gives at first the impression that we have here the meandering of a guy wobbling in fetishistic admiration, it quickly becomes apparent that such approach wants in fact to be nailing the issue right on the head. Here's a White man not only admiring the athletic bodies of multimillionaires young Black men with a cool attitude, but, also, who purports to expose, through his own fantasies, the ambivalence of racial relations within the NBA... If, at this point, you're thinking something along the line of 'what, the, fuck?!', well, welcome!
I personally thought that most of it was a lot of bullocks, telling more about him as a person than sports fans as a whole. I mean, at one point he even imagines Payton having sex with his wife! I doubt that such homoerotic outlook, served by cuckold fantasies -the old clichés of the Black stallion and the snow bunny- born out of his own insecurities (I bet he doesn't have a body as fit-looking as professional athletes, for a start...) are representative of why people love the game! Maybe, just maybe, he is the one with some racist problems although not knowing...?
Having said that, there are interesting reflexions about how greedy White business people exploit unscrupulously such Black athletes for entertainment purposes. When it comes to race, the NBA may definitely be a complex system which, I guess, one has to be American to fully understand (I am not, and it flew over my head).
Whether you like basketball or are interested in racial relations in America, here's a book which won't fail to cause controversy... or ridicule. Up to you.
December 27, 2019
Honest musings on race juxtaposed with the NBA of Jordan (the repentant baseball version), Stockton, Malone, Pippen, and of course for Mr. Shields, Gary Payton.
Weirdly, when I googled to make sure that Payton was spelled with an "a" not an "e" as in Peyton Place, Google informed me that just 2 days ago, Gary Payton II (Payton's kid) became only the seventh reserve in NBA history to post at least 10 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists, and 5 steals after being called up from the NBA's G-league. (I didn't even know they had a G-League.) He also managed to get two more steals than his father ever did in Madison Square Garden. From his picture, he is tatted out, up and down his arms. About the only person with tattoos in Payton's (the father) day was Dennis Rodman from what I can remember. Probably would be fruitful territory to examine the social implications of tattoos and race.
I don't know what that says about Shields' book, but that is sort of the point of Shields' book. Random basketball trivia and cool tidbits mingled with personal observations on race by a white guy, although Shields at least gets to be Jewish in the process. The only thing I've got is my Mormon fore-bearers believed they were Jews, so I guess that's close enough for a GoodReads review.
Weirdly, when I googled to make sure that Payton was spelled with an "a" not an "e" as in Peyton Place, Google informed me that just 2 days ago, Gary Payton II (Payton's kid) became only the seventh reserve in NBA history to post at least 10 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists, and 5 steals after being called up from the NBA's G-league. (I didn't even know they had a G-League.) He also managed to get two more steals than his father ever did in Madison Square Garden. From his picture, he is tatted out, up and down his arms. About the only person with tattoos in Payton's (the father) day was Dennis Rodman from what I can remember. Probably would be fruitful territory to examine the social implications of tattoos and race.
I don't know what that says about Shields' book, but that is sort of the point of Shields' book. Random basketball trivia and cool tidbits mingled with personal observations on race by a white guy, although Shields at least gets to be Jewish in the process. The only thing I've got is my Mormon fore-bearers believed they were Jews, so I guess that's close enough for a GoodReads review.
January 16, 2025
I said this was going to be my last David Shields, but this was so much better than the other 2 (which were good), now I'm a fan again. Mr. Shields, put more of your personality into future books. I like the quotes, but sir, it turns out the best part of your writing has been the you of it all along.
November 14, 2017
I miss the Sonics.
July 29, 2016
Did Shawn Kemp read this book, and what did he think about being prioritized below the bedroom asides?
June 3, 2019
David Shields is a liberal white man who has a lot of unacceptable thoughts about black people, particularly Gary Payton. "Black Planet" is ostensibly his diary of an NBA season, but as any reader of Shields know, it's really a diary of his self: his anxieties, his doubts, his hypocrisies, his idiosyncrasies, his biases, his "quiet" racism. I can understand why people don't like it because, as a general rule, normal people (even Goodreaders!) do not like self-obsessed guilty white whiners. But me, a self-obsessed guilty white whiner, myself... I kind of loved "Black Planet."
I think it's got a lot of truth in it. It doesn't try to be definitive on the subject of race in the NBA (and in America) because it could never be: David Shields the white liberal will simply never know the sort of adversity faced by African Americans, and by black NBA players in particular. This is the sad, honest fact that is on every page of the book-- that there are major differences in how members of certain race groups experience day-to-day American life. When Shields applies this understanding to even the most mundane aspects of NBA fandom, he discovers things about himself, and about white people in general, that are supremely upsetting and probably 100% correct.
It was written more than twenty years ago, so certain elements of it will seem dated... And it's these elements that are probably the most haunting thing about the book. Young white people (millennials, Gen Zers, whatever) are probably not as hyper-conscious about race as Shields is, and many probably don't suffer from the sort of paralyzing angst that Shields does whenever he's confronted with a person of color. (I myself am constantly lapsing into a kind of hip-hop inflected speech that 90s-Shields would probably be troubled by.) But has anything really improved in "race relations" since this book was published? Sure, Obama was elected president. Maybe we see more black figures in pop culture than we did before (maybe). But has this country's wound healed even a little bit in the last couple of decades? Seems like injustice is still the primary theme when it comes to black and white interactions. We (white people) think we've learned things, that we've come a long way, that suddenly we "understand" what's going on. But, man, have we?
Also: This book is funny and well-written.
I think it's got a lot of truth in it. It doesn't try to be definitive on the subject of race in the NBA (and in America) because it could never be: David Shields the white liberal will simply never know the sort of adversity faced by African Americans, and by black NBA players in particular. This is the sad, honest fact that is on every page of the book-- that there are major differences in how members of certain race groups experience day-to-day American life. When Shields applies this understanding to even the most mundane aspects of NBA fandom, he discovers things about himself, and about white people in general, that are supremely upsetting and probably 100% correct.
It was written more than twenty years ago, so certain elements of it will seem dated... And it's these elements that are probably the most haunting thing about the book. Young white people (millennials, Gen Zers, whatever) are probably not as hyper-conscious about race as Shields is, and many probably don't suffer from the sort of paralyzing angst that Shields does whenever he's confronted with a person of color. (I myself am constantly lapsing into a kind of hip-hop inflected speech that 90s-Shields would probably be troubled by.) But has anything really improved in "race relations" since this book was published? Sure, Obama was elected president. Maybe we see more black figures in pop culture than we did before (maybe). But has this country's wound healed even a little bit in the last couple of decades? Seems like injustice is still the primary theme when it comes to black and white interactions. We (white people) think we've learned things, that we've come a long way, that suddenly we "understand" what's going on. But, man, have we?
Also: This book is funny and well-written.
May 18, 2020
Great Nostalgia
Very cool read on an NBA beat writer’s season with the 94-95 Seattle SuperSonics. This book is meant (I think) to highlight race in sports and the dual fear of—and eroticism of the black man. Ultimately this book didn’t go far enough on the topic of race and all of the conversations behind it.
There were lots of cringe moments in this book, most interesting is the (white) writer’s accounts of imagining himself as Gary Payton while making love to his wife. I could have done without that and done more with what race means to him and how he navigates it as a white man living in Seattle.
This book however DOES have a lot of great and accurate PNW accounts like the writers own showdown while driving at a four-way stop, the general passive aggressiveness of this region and even the blase fake-liberal attitude of whites here when it comes to racism.
This is a great book when it comes to sports and there were lots of great insider stories, but it fails when the topic is race or specifically what—if anything—the writer has learned over this season.
One thing is for sure though, Seattle needs its team back.
Very cool read on an NBA beat writer’s season with the 94-95 Seattle SuperSonics. This book is meant (I think) to highlight race in sports and the dual fear of—and eroticism of the black man. Ultimately this book didn’t go far enough on the topic of race and all of the conversations behind it.
There were lots of cringe moments in this book, most interesting is the (white) writer’s accounts of imagining himself as Gary Payton while making love to his wife. I could have done without that and done more with what race means to him and how he navigates it as a white man living in Seattle.
This book however DOES have a lot of great and accurate PNW accounts like the writers own showdown while driving at a four-way stop, the general passive aggressiveness of this region and even the blase fake-liberal attitude of whites here when it comes to racism.
This is a great book when it comes to sports and there were lots of great insider stories, but it fails when the topic is race or specifically what—if anything—the writer has learned over this season.
One thing is for sure though, Seattle needs its team back.
November 11, 2019
It's just kinda okay. Well, I'm a long-time Supersonics fan, who quibbles a little with some of the stuff in the book. It didn't really enlighten me about anything. Interesting too-involved (in my opinion) take on race.
September 28, 2017
Great example of a book that would have worked much better as an essay.
November 21, 2019
content was a little outside of my usual but the narration was great. I look forward to heating more from Donald Elivert.
December 19, 2024
David Shields shares every thought Ive had (and more) about race in the NBA and how my whiteness makes me want to be like the players and creates space I can’t cross
November 15, 2014
This book is all about the National Basketball Association. David Shields the author of the book and the main character enters the world of basketball as an media reporter. He is trying to learn what peoples opinions are about one thing. That the NBA is a dominantly black sport yet the majority of the fans are white. Shields takes big risk asking such questions and writing a book about it. Race is a very sensitive topic and if said in the wrong way could cause serious conflict. He follows the team The Seattle Supersonics and begins to gain answers and a lot of different opinions from lots of different people. Robert Parish a former black basketball player for the Celtics said " Boston is a white town; they like their white players. It caters to their white heroes".(41) This is his view basically saying he thinks the fans favored the white race more than blacks. The controversy continues throughout all the interviews. This is nonfiction and it truly helped me realize the racism that goes around in one of the most popular sports in America, it opens my mind so much. The thought that racism is still alive and in use.
I enjoyed the authors style of the book. He could get a little boring sometimes nut most of the time it was interesting learning about all these peoples opinions and what they believe. David Shields used characterization a lot with all the new people we meet. The structure Shields uses in the book is very interesting he uses dates. Such as " 11.22.94-- On the front page...."(35) this is how he keeps you updated throughout the entire book on the events that are occurring. His tone throughout the book is neutral and trying to get a feel for both sides and not be bias in any ways. I think the way this is written from his own experiences it makes it that much better and interesting to read. He uses his style of writing to connect you to the time and place each day occurs at.
Overall I thought the book was very good, it had a couple of low and boring parts but most of the time I was very intrigued. I would really want to keep reading and just keep learning more and more knowledge that Shields could provide for me. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone, you don't need to love sports or basketball it is just a great book. It has a bigger value to the book than just a basketball game it digs deeper than that.
I enjoyed the authors style of the book. He could get a little boring sometimes nut most of the time it was interesting learning about all these peoples opinions and what they believe. David Shields used characterization a lot with all the new people we meet. The structure Shields uses in the book is very interesting he uses dates. Such as " 11.22.94-- On the front page...."(35) this is how he keeps you updated throughout the entire book on the events that are occurring. His tone throughout the book is neutral and trying to get a feel for both sides and not be bias in any ways. I think the way this is written from his own experiences it makes it that much better and interesting to read. He uses his style of writing to connect you to the time and place each day occurs at.
Overall I thought the book was very good, it had a couple of low and boring parts but most of the time I was very intrigued. I would really want to keep reading and just keep learning more and more knowledge that Shields could provide for me. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone, you don't need to love sports or basketball it is just a great book. It has a bigger value to the book than just a basketball game it digs deeper than that.
August 31, 2012
David Shields' look into the 1994/95 Seattle Supersonics season is a very mixed bag that ultimately gets weighed down by its own ambitions. Shields wants us to know that racism and/or racial tension exists in sports, and that that tension permeates into society at large. The readers probably already know racial tensions exists, but just in case they don't Shields points it out front and center immediately. After that Shields gives us hundreds of examples of inter-racial interaction to further drill his point home. While some of his examples are insightful and interesting, ultimately the book accomplishes nothing except perfecting redundancy.
Shields writes the book as a series of day by day journal entries, which is novel for a dozen pages but excruciating for 230. The book is divided into arbitrary chapters every 30 pages or so, and each chapter has dozens of journal entries. The problem is that this dividing scheme makes the sections of the book bleed together; chapters are not discernible from the previous or next ones. This is just an aesthetic problem. The real problem lies in the content.
It is obvious that Shields wants to make a deafening commentary about race relations in America, but he never really does. We the readers KNOW racial tensions still exist; we don't need Shields to bombard us with countless examples. What would have made this book that much more fulfilling would have been to effect the way inter-racial relations are observed and executed. However, all that Black Planet accomplishes is to string together hundreds of examples of inter-racial interaction. Some are poignant some are pointless. It's the abundance of pointless ones that drive the book into the ground. Finally, when you're finished reading, and you attempt to find the moral, you'll be left scratching your head and wondering what it was all about.
Shields writes the book as a series of day by day journal entries, which is novel for a dozen pages but excruciating for 230. The book is divided into arbitrary chapters every 30 pages or so, and each chapter has dozens of journal entries. The problem is that this dividing scheme makes the sections of the book bleed together; chapters are not discernible from the previous or next ones. This is just an aesthetic problem. The real problem lies in the content.
It is obvious that Shields wants to make a deafening commentary about race relations in America, but he never really does. We the readers KNOW racial tensions still exist; we don't need Shields to bombard us with countless examples. What would have made this book that much more fulfilling would have been to effect the way inter-racial relations are observed and executed. However, all that Black Planet accomplishes is to string together hundreds of examples of inter-racial interaction. Some are poignant some are pointless. It's the abundance of pointless ones that drive the book into the ground. Finally, when you're finished reading, and you attempt to find the moral, you'll be left scratching your head and wondering what it was all about.
November 15, 2012
My, do I hate this book. I give it three stars because it does manage to offer some interesting information and some worthwhile insights. But to get to those, you have to mine through seemingly endless pages of blather, capped off by pages and pages of talk radio transcripts. Have you ever listened to sports radio? It's the most banal, speculative, self-fellating form of media you'll find. And this book couldn't exist without it.
I understand the concepts driving this book, and they're worthwhile. But to me, they're poorly executed. Shields has little locker room insight, which was a profound disappointment -- not his fault, yet it weakens the force of the book considerably. Whether his lack of access undoes the potential of this book more than his litany of rhetorical questions -- most unanswered -- or his brain-bludgeoning insistence upon never trusting the reader and driving home in italics the arguments he's making throughout the book. It doesn't matter to him that the content is already demonstrating -- quite obviously -- some of his earlier points; he still needs to emphasize them, and it kills many potentially powerful moments.
And while some observations are excellent, others are lunacy, and some of the parallels drawn are, frankly, idiotic. This was disappointing.
I understand the concepts driving this book, and they're worthwhile. But to me, they're poorly executed. Shields has little locker room insight, which was a profound disappointment -- not his fault, yet it weakens the force of the book considerably. Whether his lack of access undoes the potential of this book more than his litany of rhetorical questions -- most unanswered -- or his brain-bludgeoning insistence upon never trusting the reader and driving home in italics the arguments he's making throughout the book. It doesn't matter to him that the content is already demonstrating -- quite obviously -- some of his earlier points; he still needs to emphasize them, and it kills many potentially powerful moments.
And while some observations are excellent, others are lunacy, and some of the parallels drawn are, frankly, idiotic. This was disappointing.
October 14, 2015
A peculiar, sometimes fascinating, sometimes maddening look at race in the 1990s NBA. Shields perfectly plays (is he playing?) the prototype of a white liberal suffused with white guilt, who obsessively (at times so obsessively you start to wonder if he's parodying the prototype) sees RACE RACE RACE as the livewire pulsating through every single interaction between a white person and a black person in 1995 Seattle. Reading this book was an adventure: I alternately applauded Shields' candor, squirmed at his reductionist, narcissistic assumptions, and laughed aloud at his perpetual PLEASE LIKE ME I'M NOT A RACIST I SWEAR paranoia around the black people he meets.
In a 2014 Esquire interview in which Shields speaks of adapting the book into a film with the help of James Franco (yes, James Franco), Shields says, "At the time I wrote Black Planet, and still now, people would tell me, 'I think you're over-reading the racial subtext in these situations.' Now, I think I'm under-reading it."
I might not always agree with Shields, but I appreciate his desire to provoke and to "go there". He knows how to touch a nerve.
In a 2014 Esquire interview in which Shields speaks of adapting the book into a film with the help of James Franco (yes, James Franco), Shields says, "At the time I wrote Black Planet, and still now, people would tell me, 'I think you're over-reading the racial subtext in these situations.' Now, I think I'm under-reading it."
I might not always agree with Shields, but I appreciate his desire to provoke and to "go there". He knows how to touch a nerve.
June 20, 2011
One of the strangest sports books I've ever read. Shields' pseudo-erotic obsession with Gary Payton is well-documented elsewhere, as is his need to view every interaction, comment, and incident through a racial lens, but I'm not sure that he's wrong - he might just be the guy saying what we're all thinking. Most sports books and sports fans are afraid to think critically, so I give him a lot of credit for refusing to deliver a formula tome and trying to dig deeper into the issues underlying my favorite sport during a turbulent season.
One caveat: "Facing Race During an NBA Season" would be more accurately changed to read "Analyzing Race Through the Fan/Media/Player/Coach Interactions of the 1994-95 Seattle SuperSonics." The rest of the NBA barely exists from Shields' perspective, except as video game-style opponents for Payton and his teammates to vanquish; when Michael Jordan makes his legendary comeback toward the season's end, it's practically an afterthought. This is about what happened in Seattle, not in the NBA or America as a whole.
One caveat: "Facing Race During an NBA Season" would be more accurately changed to read "Analyzing Race Through the Fan/Media/Player/Coach Interactions of the 1994-95 Seattle SuperSonics." The rest of the NBA barely exists from Shields' perspective, except as video game-style opponents for Payton and his teammates to vanquish; when Michael Jordan makes his legendary comeback toward the season's end, it's practically an afterthought. This is about what happened in Seattle, not in the NBA or America as a whole.
August 4, 2016
I really, really hate the phrase "white guilt" but good lord does this book exemplify it. I wanted to read a book about racism, not listen to a white guy talk about his anxieties.
Why do white people need everything to be about themselves? I do not care how hyper-aware you are about race. I do not care how racial issues can make white people uncomfortable. I do not care about a white man's perspective with regard to race. As a white man, this book is largely useless. Does the author think people of color need to hear how racism makes him feel?
Very disappointing. While there is some good stuff here and there, it's drowned out by irrelevent basketball game summaries and the inner thoughts of a well-meaning liberal George Costanza.
Why do white people need everything to be about themselves? I do not care how hyper-aware you are about race. I do not care how racial issues can make white people uncomfortable. I do not care about a white man's perspective with regard to race. As a white man, this book is largely useless. Does the author think people of color need to hear how racism makes him feel?
Very disappointing. While there is some good stuff here and there, it's drowned out by irrelevent basketball game summaries and the inner thoughts of a well-meaning liberal George Costanza.
June 8, 2008
This book delves into race in the NBA, and there is sometimes a double standard for both black and white players alike. The author follows the NBA's Seattle Supersonics for an entire season and documents racial issues in how black players treat white media and fans, and how white fans treat black players. It is surprising how many of our children's heroes act behind the scenes. The dynamic established between the two races is quite interesting and i recommend this to NBA fans all over. I personally see racial inequality in sports all over, as well as races dominating certain sports, and this book is a testament to that.
April 17, 2010
I liked this book because it reminded me of a time when Seattle had a basketball team and a (playoffs excluded) good one at that. The season described in this book is over 15 years ago, yet the players and figures in it were made familiar to me again. However, maybe it was the diary style, but I expected more discussion of race in the NBA in general and less of how it personally affected the author on a day-to-day basis. But maybe that's the point: we need to start somewhere, and that somewhere starts .
Want to read
April 24, 2010Did you think I actually read this? GOT YA!
Dave accidentally put this on my Goodreads instead of his. Why do I still have it on here? I don't know how to delete books from my shelf. Also, I like that it makes me look culturally sensitive and that I am going beyond my usual limited scope of books written on a 6th grade reading level, by or about actresses.
Dave accidentally put this on my Goodreads instead of his. Why do I still have it on here? I don't know how to delete books from my shelf. Also, I like that it makes me look culturally sensitive and that I am going beyond my usual limited scope of books written on a 6th grade reading level, by or about actresses.
June 28, 2013
A highly readable account of modern basketball fandom. Shields' book covers the 1994-95 Sonics season. Sure he has a tendency to over-share, sure he reads between the race lines far too much, sure some of it is cringe-worthy, but I sometimes I like to cringe. His ruminations on the Pacific Northwest, the player-fan relationship, and athletics in general were fascinating.
June 27, 2011
If you were a fan of NBA basketball in the 90s and you like overly analytical writing, you will find this to be a pretty good read. Good spots of humor. The author is very honest about how much he likes Gary Payton.
September 10, 2009
The undoubtedly worst book ever written.
September 4, 2010
Didn't need some of the details of his personal life, but a solid read at how we look at the NBA athlete compared to ourselves.
March 27, 2012
Weird, uncomfortable, and quite smart.
January 11, 2017
Unfocused, but not unclear. Exciting to think that even in the '90s, people had progressive ideas on race in sports.
Read
March 30, 2017THis book sheds light on the elephant in the room, does race play a role in the NBA. Some say yes and so does this book. It shows that a majority of NBA players are black. It shows how growing up in a black community, in a way, gives you the edge. It gives you athletic and aggressive qualities that other do not receive. A view I haven't seen in a book yet. Highly recommend.
July 23, 2017
Loved it. Even if you don't care about the NBA, this is wonderful. Shields is my idol.
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