Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season
Sep 2025 · U of Nebraska Press
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244
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About this ebook
First published in 1994, Black Planet is at first glance a reporting of David Shields’s journey following his hometown Seattle Supersonics through the 1994-95 NBA season. He went to the team's' 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 early internet.
He kept a daily journal which then transformed into an intensely personal diary about that season and the team, and notions about race and sport in America. He started to see a barely concealed views about black men in the NBA, and how, in a predominately black sport, white fans—including especially himself—think about and talk about black athletes and black bodies. And Shields was writing more like a twenty-first century sportswriter and critiquing local sports media in an era when it was rarely, if ever, questioned.
Critically acclaimed and highly controversial, Black Planet was finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and PEN USA Award, and it was named on the Top Ten Nonfiction Books of 1999 by Esquire, Newsday, and LA Weekly.
He kept a daily journal which then transformed into an intensely personal diary about that season and the team, and notions about race and sport in America. He started to see a barely concealed views about black men in the NBA, and how, in a predominately black sport, white fans—including especially himself—think about and talk about black athletes and black bodies. And Shields was writing more like a twenty-first century sportswriter and critiquing local sports media in an era when it was rarely, if ever, questioned.
Critically acclaimed and highly controversial, Black Planet was finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and PEN USA Award, and it was named on the Top Ten Nonfiction Books of 1999 by Esquire, Newsday, and LA Weekly.
First published in 1994, Black Planet is at first glance a reporting of David Shields’s journey following his hometown Seattle Supersonics through the 1994-95 NBA season. He went to the team's' home games; watched their away games on TV; listened to interviews and call-in shows; talked, or tried...
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About the author
David Shields is the author of twenty-five books, including Reality Hunger, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead (New York Times bestseller), Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season (finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and PEN USA Award), Remote: Reflections on Life in the Shadow of Celebrity (PEN/Revson Award), and Other People: Takes & Mistakes (NYTBR Editors’ Choice). The Very Last Interview was published by New York Review Books in 2022. The recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, two NEA fellowships, and a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, Shields has published essays and stories in New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Esquire, Yale Review, Salon, Slate, Tin House, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Believer, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Best American Essays.
Gerald Graff is a professor of English and education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of several books including Professing Literature: An Institutional History, Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education, and Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind.
David Shields is the author of twenty-five books, including Reality Hunger, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead (New York Times bestseller), Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season (finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and PEN USA Award), Remote: Reflections ...
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