At some point today in 2018 WNBAMore MVP and two-time champion Breanna Stewart tweets.it will be soon Same as the tweet she posted yesterday, and the day before, and every day for several months. The only difference is the incremental change in numbers.
Here’s what it says:
It’s been 288 days since our friend Britney Griner was wrongfully detained in Russia. It’s time for her to go home to her. @White House @potus @vp we pay attention and count on you. #WeAreBG
One of the best and most influential players in WNBA history is approaching a year into his wrongful detention. That year, Greiner’s situation only grew more dire, but our collective anger was going in the opposite direction.
Stewie tweet. Sometimes NBA players drop statements of support and solidarity, reserved by clichés about leaving everything on the court in meaningless midseason games. SportsCenter tickers offer 12-word updates and anchors talks about what Deshaun Watson will do when he returns from suspension.
Now it’s about all the coverage and all the anger that’s being displayed.
Not enough.
All anger is met by a token Reply Guy who provides iterations of the same garbage take. She committed a crime and now pays the price Before high-fiving, they scream into the void.
let it rest. Aside from the fact that laws can and often are completely immoral, Russian law states: up to 2 weeks imprisonment Can be distributed to people with 6 grams or less of marijuana.
Griner, who was in possession of just 0.7 grams of hashish oil, was sentenced to nine years in prison. The State Department calls it a “fake trial.” And, more importantly, she has just been transferred to a penal colony.
You wouldn’t want to know the living conditions in a Russian penal colony.Greiner joins A 16-hour work day full of physical laborall the while being denied medical care.
Perhaps most frighteningly, no one, or at least no one in the United States, really knows where Greiner is. Her exact location is unknown. Her condition is unknown. Her health is unknown.
The Mordovian penal colony was not only used as a labor camp, Torture and physical abuse are commonplaceRacism and homophobia are seen for granted A prison in Mordovia made Griner, not only an American woman but a black lesbian, a prime target for violent attacks.
But it’s not just Russian homophobia, racism and misogyny that hurt Griner. As expected, it’s also an American one. Although there is some legitimacy in the argument that the attention Griner receives is commensurate with her celebrity status (she is certainly much more than unjustly detained American citizen Paul Whelan). making many headlines), her gender, sexual orientation, and race have uncontroversially curbed public outrage.
Although not all, Griner has 481,000 Instagram followers.That’s more than four times less than golden state warriors Guard Donte DiVincenzo, almost doubled next los angeles lakers Guard Austin Reeves, almost the same mark as popular memphis grizzlies Center Stephen Adams.
DiVincenzo, Reaves, and Adams are straight white men whose nearly ten years of unjust detention in a violent dictatorship cause far more uproar than Griner. . If you disagree with that, you are wrong.
Failure to keep Griner at the forefront of the news cycle is the collective failure of everyone outside the WNBA. The response from the NBA and its players has been good, but not good enough. From the outside, Griner would think he’s someone with a similar line of work to an NBA player, and he’s not one of the faces of the subsidiary. Coverage from sportswriters, TV personalities, and other talking heads (myself included) has been weak. We all claim to love the pain of sports, but when it gets too real, it quickly and quietly reverts to thrills.
It’s fair to point out that Griner’s celebrity status doesn’t make her more deserving of our wrath than anyone else illegally detained in inhumane conditions. It is ignorant to think that you do not understand Griner’s celebrity height is partly why she was sentenced to nine years in prison in living conditions no human being should ever experience. It is a bargaining chip and an obligation to take her as seriously as the people who are detaining, abusing and potentially torturing her. That’s the bare minimum and the only way to get her home.
It has been 288 days since Griner, one of the world’s most successful athletes, was wrongfully detained in Russia. Her dominance on the court is clear, but our anger is not.
288 days. labor camp. unknown location. Violence, abuse, prejudice.
Brittney Griner needs our wrath. Our anger is what can bring her back to her home, so where is it?
Editor’s Note: It’s hard to know what each of us can do individually to improve this situation, but retweeting is a good place to start. Breanna Stewart’s Daily ReminderIf the same number of NBA fans commenting on a potential Russell Westbrook trade on social media were doing the same thing every day, the volume of this horrifying situation would increase significantly. Stewart’s daily tweets are less than 1,000 RTs per day. That’s not enough.
