Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season

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 show more 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. show less

Basketball > United States > Sociological/aspects/African American basketball players > Social/conditions/Basketball fans > United States > Social/Discrimination in sports > United States/Shields, David > Diaries/Seattle SuperSonics (Basketball team)/United States > Race relations