Squires: After 10 months in Russian jail, Brittney Griner should be singing the national anthem, not protesting it

Like many Americans, I am happy that Brittney Griner was released from Russian detention and her sentence of nine years in prison after authorities found cannabis oil in her luggage at a Moscow airport. I understand that ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law, but her punishment always seemed far out of proportion to her crime. The fact that Griner previously stated the national anthem should not be played at WNBA games – or that the U.S. had to trade a Russian arms dealer for her release – doesn’t change that reality.

Griner’s peers in the WNBA have been some of her most vocal supporters. The league has also been at the forefront of the fusion of sports and political activism. The movement that was thrust into the national spotlight by Colin Kaepernick should have a new leader in Griner.

I hope that close to a year in Russian custody has given Griner a greater appreciation for the freedoms she has here in America. Ironically enough, those freedoms include the ability to openly criticize elected officials, use your place of employment to engage in personal protest, and argue for the destruction of the very institutions that have helped the country prosper.

Range Rover revolutionaries in professional sports like Kaepernick have used high-profile cases involving fatal police shootings to advocate for far more than the prosecution of rogue cops. They have called for police and prison abolition in order to create a Marxist utopia.

They lionize Fidel Castro but, like most of us, can’t name any of his political rivals. That’s because public opposition to his regime was a good way to end up dead or in prison. Griner has the lived experience to remind Kaepernick and his acolytes about the freedoms they enjoy here.

Ingratitude and entitlement are national disorders. They are seen in children who lecture their parents on their personal and political shortcomings as well as in journalists who paint WNBA players like Griner as paupers because they don’t make as much money as LeBron James.

Another group of people who should reflect on this moment are the social commentators who filter every story or social phenomenon through the prism of race.

Griner’s release certainly strikes a crushing blow against one of their ivory idols – the belief that “white privilege” is the most powerful magnetic force in America. They believe that every benefit a white person receives – and every punishment he doesn’t receive – is due to America’s devotion to whiteness.

But it certainly didn’t apply to GrinerGate. In fact, the Biden administration left a straight white man who is a former Marine named Paul Whelan in Russia while moving heaven and earth to bring home a black lesbian basketball player. If Whelan has white privilege, it certainly didn’t help him in this situation.

The truth is that Griner’s fame and intersectional identities were a perfect match for this administration’s priorities, especially with the support she received from high-profile black women in sports and media bringing attention to her case.

In America, academics make excuses for theft and activists call looting a form of reparations. In other countries, those perpetrators would be flogged in public or lose a hand. Imperfect as our system is, Brittney Griner should remind her peers in professional sports that the rights they enjoy as Americans are not universal.

This doesn’t mean that athletes shouldn’t speak up for causes they support. It means that there is a significant difference between the athletes whose instincts are to deconstruct and dismantle rather than build and preserve. Working-class fans don’t want to be lectured on politics by pampered athletes making millions. After ten months in Russian custody, Griner should be singing the anthem at home games, not protesting it.