America-bashing WNBAer Brittney Griner was recently sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison for the seemingly small offense of carrying hashish through the airport. It makes her continual trashing of our wonderful country supremely ironic and one wonders if she’ll change her tune between now and her release.
If I were a betting person, and I am, I would say Griner will double down on her anti-American sentiments and blame everyone from Joe Biden on down to letting a gay black women remain stranded in unenviable prison conditions abroad.
Can’t you hear it now? A straight white male superstar would have had their release negotiated immediately! As if.
For now, Griner’s fate remains up in the air. Her Russian lawyer, Alexandr D. Boykov, shared in an interview the most recent updates to the Griner saga, noting her understandably declining mental state and growing anxiety around an uncertain future.
“She has not been in as good condition as I could sometimes find her in,” he said. “She is not yet absolutely convinced that America will be able to take her home”
Boykov added: “She is very worried about what the price of that [a prisoner exchange] will be, and she is afraid that she will have to serve the whole sentence here in Russia.
The New York Times added that her lawyer also said Griner lawyers expressed concern of an “uncertainty over which type of prison Ms. Griner would end up in is a particular concern, as she fears it will be one with miserable or inhumane conditions.”
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Western Journal opined on the developments in a view shared by many of us. Had Griner been more sympathetic to the United States, our outlook might be different. As it stands, Griner repeatedly expressed no love or interest in this nation and now she’s discovering that hatred might have been misplaced.
It’s more than legitimate to point out that Griner’s previous criticism of the American justice system is an acute irony, considering her circumstances. You’re unlikely to find inmates serving nine-year sentences in American prisons for bringing a personal quantity of marijuana through an airport.
Griner went beyond merely kneeling for “The Star-Spangled Banner” — the progressive athlete openly called for the WNBA to cease playing the national anthem in 2020, going so far as to announce that she would remain in her team’s locker room when the anthem was played, according to a July 2020 report in The Washington Post.
Now, the multimillionaire athlete would probably be more than relieved to hear “The Star Spangled Banner” instead of Russia’s national anthem, which is itself a crude replacement of the Soviet anthem.
Adding to the bleak outlook of a resolution by the Russian criminal justice system, British outlet Independent reported that just .25% of all cases are acquitted. Unless Joe Biden negotiates her release or exchange – during escalating tensions related to a hot conflict overseas and a seemingly sabotaged pipeline, no less – the odds of her going anywhere are slim.
She has plenty of time to rethink her allegiances and values. Time will tell how that reflection process unfolds.
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