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Rating: 
Summary: This book is honest
Review: David Shield's account of the Seattle SuperSonics' 94-95 season is one of the most honest accounts of the relationship between White men as spectator and Black men as players - predomominately. So many accounts of sports - written by White and Black men - do not even acknowledge this relationship. It is honest, thought-provoking, and entertaining! Kudos to Mr. Shield for his candid and humorous examination of this subject.
Rating: 
Summary: Sometimes insightful but not usually
Review: 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 racsim 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 interacial interaction to furthur 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 discernable 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 interacial relations are observed and executed. However, all that Black Planet accomplishes is to string together hundreds of examples of interacial 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.
Rating:
Summary: This Book drops the bomb
Review: I did not like this book at all. Shields had a very good idea when he went into the season for writing this book. A little info, I am a basketball PHANATIC (I mean it!) and I live in Seattle, not to mention I am very intrigued by the relationship between race and the NBA and sports in general. I would have liked to give this book 0 stars but this format is too generous. What started out as a topic that I was excited to read about quickly turned into a horrendously slanted, overly cluttered and boring book! One of the worst parts of this book is the fact that it has some of the most random blips that you will ever read! To think that the author is a professor at UW is scary, as he is much more suited to be a Marxist theorist in the Sociology department. If you read the book and like it, good for you, but I was not a fan at ALL. 0%.
Rating: 
Summary: I wanted to like this book, but. . .
Review: I simply could not. Fans of basketball and those who want to think seriously about the issue of race in NBA and in American culture generally will not enjoy this book because it is not the view of an insider (which would have been forgiveable if it did not also lack any meaningful analysis). Shields is just another onlooker with a standard homoerotic male gaze.
Rating: 
Summary: Not your typical sports diary -- thank goodness!
Review: If you want a book that goes beyond the every day box scores and cliche quotes, and actually gets you to think about important issues such as race, this is the book for you. Shields dives into the NBA season and comes out with a perspective on how he and other white people view blacks, black athletes and the world both races live in. It had me thinking more about race than I ever have. In an arena composed of rich, white fans watching former poor black athletes rise to the top of the sporting world, Shields breaks it all down for us, and candidly reveals his own shortcomings and faults regarding this issue. It takes guts for a writer to take on himself. An excellent book on an excellent topic: race. Basketball is the sub-topic. If you want to THINK about race and have perhaps some of your own perceptions changed, get this book.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: Insightful, observant and brave, David Shields' Black Planet is a thought-provoking look at America's sports culture and, ultimately, America's culture in general. Never afraid to use himself as a subject, the author takes a look at the racial dynamic apparant -but rarely confronted upon- in the NBA. Even for the non-sports fan, this book will prove to be an enlightening read because basketball only provides the backdrop for the author's exploration of society and self. It should be noted that the author is not a sports writer. In fact, the author often seems out of place in the various professional basketball environments he roams and inhabits in the book. Such a feeling of disconnect, however, aids the text, I believe; such an outside-looking-in perspective gives the book a voice I suspect many readers will recognize--their own.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: Insightful, observant and brave, David Shields' Black Planet is a thought-provoking look at America's sports culture and, ultimately, America's culture in general. Never afraid to use himself as a subject, the author takes a look at the racial dynamic apparant -but rarely confronted upon- in the NBA. Even for the non-sports fan, this book will prove to be an enlightening read because basketball only provides the backdrop for the author's exploration of society and self. It should be noted that the author is not a sports writer. In fact, the author often seems out of place in the various professional basketball environments he roams and inhabits in the book. Such a feeling of disconnect, however, aids the text, I believe; such an outside-looking-in perspective gives the book a voice I suspect many readers will recognize--their own.
Rating:
Summary: A sports book for intellectuals
Review: Remote is an intelligent exploration of the deeper meanings of basketball. David Shields follows the Seattle Sonics during the '94-'95 season, commenting not only on the dynamics of play but also on issues of race and our need for the other, for transcendence from our lives through sports fandom. So compelling is Shield's case for an intellectual take on basketball that I, a nonsportsfan type, began watching basketball games after reading this book. If you're up for delving into the greater meanings of fandom and the catharsis of sports, this is a great book to read. If you're a fan looking for basketball stats and play by play description look elsewhere. This is more than just a book about sports--it's a book about what sports mean to us.
Rating:
Summary: A sports book for intellectuals
Review: Remote is an intelligent exploration of the deeper meanings of basketball. David Shields follows the Seattle Sonics during the '94-'95 season, commenting not only on the dynamics of play but also on issues of race and our need for the other, for transcendence from our lives through sports fandom. So compelling is Shield's case for an intellectual take on basketball that I, a nonsportsfan type, began watching basketball games after reading this book. If you're up for delving into the greater meanings of fandom and the catharsis of sports, this is a great book to read. If you're a fan looking for basketball stats and play by play description look elsewhere. This is more than just a book about sports--it's a book about what sports mean to us.
Rating:
Summary: Oh, No!
Review: The Sonics of the era this book covers were an exciting team, this book is not. By turns boring, pedantic, and just plain silly, David Shields is neither a good writer OR thinker. That is not his fault, but the people who published this book should know better. His dime-store sociological insights into the way black and white Seattle citizens interact are difficult to wade through, with absolutely no payoff once you reach the other side. Gary Payton actually is an object worthy of the type of worship seen here, but you would never know why by reading this book, which examines in detail The Glove's press conference and radio talk show utterences while saying virtually nothing about the artistry and poetry of the Man's GAME. And that's a shame. I'm glad I borrowed this from the library...
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