Brittney Griner
Dec. 9th, 2022 04:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tiggymalvern
Am I the only person on the face of this planet to have zero fucking sympathy for Brittney Griner? This is one of the most famous women in her sport, who has acclaim, records, Olympic gold medals, enough money to live a perfectly cushy life. And yet year after year, she went to play basketball in Russia because they paid her well. Apparently she could ignore everything going on in Russia - the oppression of journalists, the murder and jailing of Putin's political opponents, the invasion of Ukraine - all because she was given enough money to ignore it.
This woman's a lesbian, openly so, she's married to a woman. And yet she cheerfully went to Russia every year, with not a care for the ever-worsening Russian treatment of gay people, the awful situations that her own people were being forced into there, because she was rich and famous enough not to care - those laws didn't matter to her and she was being well paid.
She only gave a shit about Russian oppression when suddenly it DID happen to her, and she spent nine months in a Russian jail for something that isn't a crime where she lives. And then the whole American media and even some of the international media's all upset about poor Brittney Griner; we have to get out her out of there, we have to exert all the diplomatic pressure in the world to get her back.
Well now she's back. And in exchange for this one stupid, selfish woman, an utter scumbag gets to walk free. There are people rotting in Russian jails who are worth fifty Brittney Griners, but the media doesn't seem to give a shit about too many of them.
Brittney Griner made her own choices, in full knowledge of the kind of country she was willing to patronise, and frankly I think she damn well deserved to be left there. But now she's out, she'd better give a whole lot of her money, including every cent she makes from selling her story, to Ukraine or Russian LGBT organisations - the people who really deserve the sympathy.
This woman's a lesbian, openly so, she's married to a woman. And yet she cheerfully went to Russia every year, with not a care for the ever-worsening Russian treatment of gay people, the awful situations that her own people were being forced into there, because she was rich and famous enough not to care - those laws didn't matter to her and she was being well paid.
She only gave a shit about Russian oppression when suddenly it DID happen to her, and she spent nine months in a Russian jail for something that isn't a crime where she lives. And then the whole American media and even some of the international media's all upset about poor Brittney Griner; we have to get out her out of there, we have to exert all the diplomatic pressure in the world to get her back.
Well now she's back. And in exchange for this one stupid, selfish woman, an utter scumbag gets to walk free. There are people rotting in Russian jails who are worth fifty Brittney Griners, but the media doesn't seem to give a shit about too many of them.
Brittney Griner made her own choices, in full knowledge of the kind of country she was willing to patronise, and frankly I think she damn well deserved to be left there. But now she's out, she'd better give a whole lot of her money, including every cent she makes from selling her story, to Ukraine or Russian LGBT organisations - the people who really deserve the sympathy.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-10 04:25 am (UTC)I think to dump on her for using her opportunities which, as a gay black woman, are a lot less than those of the straight white men crapping on her, is victim blaming. What she did or did not have in her bags, is very unclear as it appears she was encouraged to admit to more than she did in a failed attempt to win favour from the Russians, and she certainly was not in a good position at her trial. Regardless of that, she is not a criminal. She is a victim of Putin as surely as any other person he's wrongfully and corruptly imprisoned. Blaming a gay woman for Putin's homophobic rampages isn't right, to my mind.
Sportspeople are put in invidious situations too often just to earn money, as we've just seen in Qatar. Griner had every reason to think she would be safe returning to Russia again. She was wrong.
The scumbag was due for release in two years, by the way.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-10 06:28 am (UTC)If she needed the money, if she was desperate to make a living, I'd agree with you. She didn't need that money, she just wanted it. She currently has a salary of over 200k a year with her American team, plus sponsorship deals. The fact that she's not the only gay person to earn money in Russia doesn't make it laudable.
She's someone who had choices. The choice to stand up and make a statement about the way gay people are treated, or to keep her mouth shut and take the money. Yes, the Russian legal system fucked her over (funny that!) and she was convinced to make a terrible plea deal. They couldn't have done that to her if she hadn't put herself in the hands of a fascist dictatorship. You and I will just have to differ on this one.
Qatar is a shitshow, and only happened because FIFA is massively corrupt. The athletes there have a horrendous choice to make, because it's not just about them - if they make a stand and decide not to go, they're letting down their teammates and their country. Lewis Hamilton races in F1 in shitty middle eastern countries with terrible human rights records because he has a contract that doesn't let him pick and choose between races, because he can't just ditch his team. But he goes on record, loudly, saying that he doesn't think F1 races should be held in those countries. Griner's decision was one hundred percent hers, and she stayed quiet.