About the book

The National Basketball Association is a place where white fans and black players enact virtually every racial issue and tension in U.S. culture. Following the Seattle SuperSonics for an entire season, David Shields explores how, in a predominantly black sport, white fans—including especially himself—think about and talk about black heroes, black scapegoats, and black bodies.

Praise

“A risky and brilliant book. . . . It compares favorably to Frederick Exley’s classic A Fan’s Notes…Shields [is] willing to write himself naked about the hungers and envies that move across the grandstand like the wave.” —Robert Lipsyte, The New York Times

“Brilliant. In Black Planet, Shields uses his gift for meditated observation to astounding effect. He has produced one of the best books ever written on the subject of sport in America, which is to say a book that is about a great deal more than sport.” —A.O. Scott, Newsday