Brittney Griner’s long journey home is rooted in both the best and worst of America
As a Black gay woman, the WNBA star stands at the intersection of several groups that have dealt with persecution in our nation.
When Brittney Griner was returned to America in a prisoner exchange with Russia, it was the kind of storybook ending that we rarely see in real life.
Griner, a WNBA champion and two-time gold-medal winner with the U.S. Olympic basketball team, was arrested in February in a Moscow airport, just days before Russia invaded Ukraine. She was charged with drug smuggling when Russian authorities found vape cartridges containing less than a gram of cannabis oil in her luggage. She was later tried and convicted after pleading guilty, and was sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony. In a handwritten letter to President Joe Biden, Griner said she feared she would be there forever.
For all intents and purposes, Griner was a political prisoner, seemingly held in Russia as leverage against America’s support of Ukraine since the invasion. But Brittney Griner’s story is not one that was driven by the Russians. It was caused by conditions that were created right here in America.
Brittney Griner’s story was caused by conditions that were created right here in America.
Griner, you see, was in Russia to play basketball during the offseason, to augment the paltry salary that WNBA players make in comparison with their male counterparts. She was there because women, and especially Black women, make less money than men in America — even though, in many ways, Black women are the backbone of our country.
That’s why Griner’s story is so utterly American. It is rooted in both the best and the worst aspects of who we are.
In a country where a Black woman is vice president, where Black women like Beyoncé and Oprah Winfrey are cultural icons, Black women are making tremendous strides. A 2020 study by the National Center for Education Statistics found that Black women were enrolled in college at higher rates than most other groups, regardless of gender. However, Black women earn just 63 cents for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men. And that pay gap, it seems, is widening.
That’s not a function of educational attainment or qualifications. Even Black women with advanced degrees (master’s or above) earn less than white men with just bachelor’s degrees. Why? I would submit to you that it is the result of historical realities grounded in racism and misogyny.
Our country, which was founded by white men, is structured to benefit white men. To be both Black and a woman meant being enslaved, abused, and taken for granted. Even when slavery ended, anti-Black and anti-woman attitudes persisted. Therefore, when Black women are paid a pittance compared with white men with fewer qualifications, that is not an accident. It is structural. And still, despite all they’ve been through, Black women continue to work for the betterment of America. They continue, somehow, to hope that our country can rise above its history of oppression.
Brittney Griner, as a gay Black woman, stands at the intersection of several groups that have dealt with persecution in America. So, when she faced the reality of making less money than she should have, she did what the oppressed have always done: She found a way around her oppression. By doing so, she placed herself in danger, and wound up in a penal colony that was described as having conditions that resembled enslavement.
Thankfully, her family, celebrities, and yes, even her supporters on social media, never stopped trying to get her home. The president stepped up to make it happen, and though the history that placed her in that Russian penal colony represents the worst of America, the diligence that brought her home represents the best of America.
A woman whose identity would have meant exclusion just decades ago stood at the center of America’s consciousness. She was the subject of America’s concern. She was the focus of America’s power. That’s what allowed her to walk across the tarmac in an airport in Abu Dhabi, and board a flight home to America.
She reportedly spent hours talking to the other Americans on the plane. Not because they looked like her or thought like her, or shared her background and history. She talked to them because they are from a country that finally placed value on her life. She talked to them because America is her home.
I can only hope that Brittney Griner’s experience will open doors for other Black women, so they don’t have to risk their lives to learn their value.