WNBA All-Star Brittney Griner was arrested a week before Russia invaded Ukraine.
On February 17, the Russian Federal Customs Service detained Griner at Sheremetyevo International Airport for allegedly transporting cannabis-derived vape cartridges in her luggage. She was charged with drug smuggling. Griner said she had no recollection of packing the cartridges and told the judge, “I made an honest mistake, and I hope that in your ruling that it doesn’t end my life here.”
As a strategy, Griner pleaded guilty to the charges to expedite her trial, hoping it would open dialogue about a possible prisoner exchange and it’d be her get-out-of-jail card. Also, a guilty plea might gift Griner a lesser sentence and avoid retribution from prison guards while detained. Griner’s attorneys have filed an appeal for her nine-year sentence as she serves time in a “gulag-like labor camp.” Tragically, Brittany has become a geopolitical pawn for both Russia and the US, highlighting Putin’s ruthlessness and America’s hypocrisy. And, her problems are compounded by being a Black queer woman.
Why is Brittany in Russia?
Many have questioned why Griner was in Russia in the first place. But the answer is simple: US’s persistent and systemic gender pay gap affects women in every profession. Griner being in a Russian prison is a direct consequence of the gender-pay disparity, even in professional sports.
Since 2016, Griner has played for the Russian oligarch-funded UMMC Ekaterinburg team. The gender salary gap between the WNBA and NBA players is insulting, forcing female players to compete overseas during the offseason to play in Europe, earning them four to five times their US salaries.
The revenue disparity highlights the following: the lack of money poured into women’s basketball, unlike in Russia and other European countries, and female players’ dependence on supplemental work rather than compensate these professional athletes appropriately.
Geopolitical pawn
Griner is no stranger to Russian basketball enthusiasts. But the deafening silence from the UMMC Ekaterinburg team is hypocritically revealing on many fronts. And Griner’s intersectional identities place Griner in the wrong place at the right time during Putin’s war against Ukraine.
Griner being an out lesbian is no secret here or in Russia. Russia’s notoriously anti-LGBTQ+ laws and attitudes are no secret, too. The UMMC, however, has been able to insulate and protect its queer players. And the UMMC has not stepped up on Griner’s behalf. Some critics contest that Russia’s anti-queer propaganda laws are now being used to weaponize and harass LGBTQ+ people, activists and organizations to deflect attention from the war. Other critics of the UMMC’s silence state Griner’s utility to the team expired the day she was arrested.
However, where’s the LGBTQ+ support for Griner in the States? Many in the LGBTQ+ Black community have expressed dismay at the deafening silence from the larger white LGBTQ+ community. Some wonder if professional soccer player Megan Rapinoe were in a Russian prison, would there be a louder outcry and more robust activism from white queers and organizations. The ongoing effort, however, to bring Griner home has mainly come from African American women. An intersectional and intergenerational group of 1,200 prominent Black women have asked in a letter to President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to “make a deal” to bring Brittney Griner home.
LGBTQ+ people in the US and Russia are marginalized differently. While Americans can look at Russia’s draconian laws and attitudes toward its LGBTQ+ citizens, America isn’t looking so good these days. Aside from Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay Law” passed this year, anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination in the US has taken a hard-right political turn since Trump. With Roe v Wade overturned this year, many of us are worried about what will happen to the goals of reproductive justice, marriage equality, our right to same-gender intimacy, and the fight to combat over 300 anti-LGBTQ+ legislation bills in 28 states this year alone.
Russia likes to exploit tensions of race and racism in America, especially when it can expose America’s hypocrisy as a paragon of democracy on the world stage. It’s clear that Brittany is wrongly detained in Russia. However, regarding the number of wrongful convictions, the US leads all nations. The US incarcerates Black and brown people at five times the rate of whites. Over 2,400 people have been exonerated in the United States since 1989.
Who wins the get-out-of-jail card?
Rev. Al Sharpton has asked Biden to arrange for him and a group of faith leaders to meet with Grinner. Former NBA player Dennis Rodman said he was going to get her. Their hopes have not panned out. Griner, however, is not the only American who’s run afoul of Russia’s strict drug laws. Last year, Maryland teacher Marc Vogel, 60, was sentenced to 14 years for entering with medical marijuana to treat chronic pain. In 2018, former Marine Paul Whelan, 52, was sentenced to 16 years on suspicion of spying, and there are others. Is Brittany a good political bargaining chip? Biden needs the Black vote for re-election and must uphold his promise to Black America. But what will it do for our fraught race relations here?
Moreover, a prisoner swap might encourage more hostage-taking. No trade, Griner might languish in a Russian prison. Griner’s imprisonment has highlighted Russia’s and America’s ongoing power struggle. Also, her marginalized intersectional identities in America—race, class, gender and sexuality—have highlighted the reason why she’s over there in the first place.
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