Black Planet

Description

"The National Basketball Association is a place where, without ever acknowledging it, white fans and black players enact and quietly explode virtually every racial issue and tension in the culture at large. In Black Planet, David Shields explores how, in a predominantly black sport, white fans - including especially himself - think about and talk about black heroes, black scapegoats, black bodies."--BOOK JACKET. "During the 1994-95 NBA season, Shields went to the Seattle SuperSonics' home games; watched their away games on TV; listened to interviews and call-in shows; talked, or tried to talk, to players, coaches, and agents; attended charity events; corresponded with members of the Sonics newsgroup on the Web. He kept a journal and over the next few years transformed that journal into this book, which is focused sharply on white spectators' relationship to black athletes, in particular Shields' own identification with Gary Payton, the team's language-besotted point-guard."--BOOK JACKET.

First Sentence

11.5.94-My initial impression, as I stand next to the Seattle SuperSonics in the locker room an hour before the first game of the season, is that they're twelve utterly unconnected buildings; they convey no sense whatsoever that they're all part of a single city.

Excerpt

11.5.94-My initial impression, as I stand next to the Seattle SuperSonics in the locker room an hour before the first game of the season, is that they're twelve utterly unconnected buildings; they convey no sense whatsoever that they're all part of a single city.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA SeasonCrown1999-10-19
• Black PlanetPaperbackBison Books2006-12-01
• Black planetHarmony Books1999-01-01
• Black PlanetThree Rivers Press2000-11-07