Brittney Griner, safe and sound, has encountered more hate in the United States

Paola Boivin
| Special to The Arizona Republic

A week ago, an ejected and dejected Brittney Griner sat in the Mercury locker room during a game against the Los Angeles Sparks and responded to Instagram posts calling her a man and questioning her toughness in Russia.

It was the typical social media scum, made up of faceless, soulless posters flexing their muscles, powered by intolerance and lies.

On the day of the Mercury’s potential final game of the season, it’s time to end the hate. Show some grace. As we celebrate Diana Taurasi for her accomplished career, we also celebrate Griner’s strong 2024 season, her second since spending 293 days in Russian prisons.

She has persevered. Once again.

Why, almost two years after her release, are people still attacking her?

Griner’s book, “Coming Home,” published in May, details not only the mental and physical pain she endured during incarceration but also the challenges she faced growing up.

That’s why I started hula hooping. It made me feel really visible. It also made me feel less like an outsider… When you’re still flat-chested in eighth grade, people talk. Girls in the locker room point and whisper, “Is she a boy, a lesbian, a weirdo? Why is she talking so quietly?”

Basketball also provided a respite during college.

When you’re 6’5″ and wearing size 10 men’s sneakers, you don’t fit in. Not in cars. Not on chairs. Not in beds. Not in crowds. And definitely not in a world that mistakes you for what it fears most: a black man.

Stop questioning who Griner is and just let her be. People come out of the womb differently. In high school, she was tall and had a deep voice. Her parents were worried she had a tumor on her pituitary gland and she succumbed to the role of lab rat. She had to deal with constant bullying.

Basketball changed everything. He dunked when he was a sophomore in high school, it went viral on YouTube, and suddenly he had an identity, support and respect.

That led her to the WNBA, where she helped boost viewership for women’s basketball. But because the league can’t compete with salaries in other countries, Griner, like many of the top American players, played overseas, where she earned an annual salary of more than $1 million, compared with the $220,000 she was paid by the Mercury in 2022.

That February was when his life took an unimaginable turn.

Yes, she was stupid. On the way to her concert abroad, in Russia, she forgot that she had left two vaporizers containing 0.7 grams of cannabis prescribed by a doctor in her backpack.

Officials discovered this after it landed in Moscow.

A nine-year sentence for drug trafficking and possession six months after his arrest does not fit the crime, and anyone suggesting otherwise is viewing the case through a distorted lens. His lawyer told him that half of the 36 trials held in Russia that year for the same crime ended with a suspended sentence for the defendant.

She was a pawn in a country trying to send a message, but many still suggest she got what she deserved.

Did she deserve the humiliation?

“Take me off,” the doctor ordered. I stared at him, stunned. Take me off?” “Take everything off,” he repeated. Shocked and humiliated, I pulled off my underwear, my socks, even my glasses. I didn’t cover my private parts, or cringe or shake. I just tried to escape my body, pretend it wasn’t there. Two guards exchanged glances. The rest stared at me. I felt like they expected me to break down, to be a weak American. I stood there as the doctor took photos and motioned for me to turn around. Front. Back. Side. Click. I felt like crying, but I had no tears left.

Did she deserve slave labor?

We all worked different shifts depending on our job, but Russian labor camps are called that for a reason. All inmates worked 10-, 12-, 15-hour days or more. We earned a few rubles an hour, about 25 cents. … I worked in sewing, in a factory-like building with row upon row of Soviet-era machines. There was no ventilation and little heating. There were no bathroom breaks. We knew we had to empty our bladders during the 20-minute lunch break. Each group was given a quota, about 500 military uniforms a day. Teams that didn’t exceed it were reprimanded.

Did she deserve indignity?

The shower was a small tiled stall behind a folding screen. I was too big, so I crouched behind the screen, splashed water on my dreadlocks and tried to clean myself. Meanwhile, the bathroom hummed. It was a large, open space with four toilets facing each other and six sinks shared by the 50 of us. I saw a lot of things I didn’t want to see and the room stank, as did most of the women.

She eventually cut her hair in prison because her locks became tangled, then frozen, then moldy from the conditions.

People have called her anti-American.

Hey?

She has often spoken of her patriotism.
His father fought in Vietnam and served in the police force for 30 years.
She grew up wanting to be like him.
She firmly believes in a country her father worked hard to defend.
She strongly believes in NOT defunding the police.

And if you have a problem with Griner coming home thanks to a prisoner exchange that involved a Russian arms dealer, tell the government, not Griner. To this day, she works with Bring Our Families Home, a group formed in 2022 by relatives of American hostages and detainees wrongfully held abroad.

Her return home was joyful but not easy. She has had trouble sleeping and has been the target of the worst attacks from trolls on social media.

However, she is still a joy to watch on the basketball court and still engages with fans. Sometimes, you still see that childlike personality emerge.

So give her a break. Show her some grace. Celebrate a woman who has fought bullying her entire life.

And if you can’t, take your weaknesses elsewhere.

Paola Boivin is a former columnist for The Arizona Republic and now a professor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

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Brittney Griner, safe and sound, has encountered more hate in the United States

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By S. Jacob

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