All-Stars: ‘We must get’ Griner home
CHICAGO — Like any other milestone in the WNBA, the 2022 All-Star Game will be about much more than basketball.
WNBA players rarely stay on the sidelines when it comes to a fight for human rights. And as the league converges on Chicago for All-Star weekend, players carry with them the burden of a tumultuous year of advocacy for trans children, reproductive rights and gun control.
But the foremost issue for the league and its players is the imprisonment of Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner, who pleaded guilty to drug possession charges in Russia earlier this week in an effort to possibly secure a prisoner exchange with the U.S. government.
After assembling a letter cosigned by nearly 1,200 prominent Black women including Bernice King and Dawn Staley, the Women’s National Basketball Players Association will continue to plead with the Biden administration to negotiate for the Houston native’s release throughout the weekend.
“With a 99 percent conviction rate, Russia’s process is its own,” the WNBPA said in a statement Thursday. “You can’t navigate it or even understand it like our own legal system. What we do know is that the U.S. State Department determined that Brittney Griner was wrongfully detained for a reason and will continue negotiating her release regardless of the legal process. We’ll leave it at that.
“The administration needs to know that this powerful collective is behind them and supports whatever needs to be done to get BG, Paul Whelan and other detained U.S. nationals home right away.”
Nneka Ogwumike, an AllStar forward for the Los Angeles Sparks, focused on Griner’s humanity while speaking Friday ahead of the festivities.
“BG, Brittney Griner, is an American hero,” said Ogwumike, who played at Cy-Fair. “She is ours and she is yours, and we must get her home.”
Ogwumike, the president of the players’ association, joined Griner’s wife, Cherelle, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Seattle Storm star Sue Bird and union leader Terri Jackson for a press conference calling for mercy for Griner a day after the eight-time All-Star pleaded guilty to drug possession charges that could see her sentenced to up to 10 years in prison.
“She’s been there 4½ months, having to be transported in vehicles too small for her frame,” Sharpton said. “Incarcerated where, she’s in a place where most of the people in that place can’t speak her language. I think she’s already done a lot of time given what we’re talking about was the infraction.”
Griner’s guilty plea could be an effort by her and her advisers to expedite the court proceedings.
“BG has taken accountability, and now it is time — past time — for this to come to a conclusion,” Jackson said.
Griner’s absence will leave a gaping hole throughout All-Star weekend as the league plans to use the platform to hold attention to her imprisonment. But the scope of player activism will be wide-ranging as mass shootings and attacks on abortion and transgender rights swept through the country this season.
In the wake of mass shootings in Uvalde and a Buffalo, N.Y., players enacted media blackouts and used social media to demand stricter gun control legislation. Now the league’s All-Stars arrive in Chicago to a community still reeling from a mass shooting in Highland Park on the Fourth of July.
“We have an issue in this country,” Washington Mystics guard Natasha Cloud said after the team announced a media blackout following the Uvalde shooting. “Not only white supremacy — we also have a gun violence issue. … We’re talking about our kids not being safe to go to school, and our government is still not implementing sensible gun laws.
“This isn’t about taking people’s rights away from bearing arms; this is about putting sensible gun laws in so this doesn’t happen again.”
The same political fervor spilled over following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last month, sparking protests that likely will continue this weekend.
In a league predominantly represented by Black and queer women, it never has been a surprise that WNBA athletes take their platforms seriously.
But this year’s All-Star Game highlights a continued shift in the power given to the voices of women’s athletes.
“For people that are standing up and being the voice — I think it’s really important,” Courtney Vandersloot f the Chicago ky said in June. “The fight’s not over. People need voices and I think the WNBA and the Chicago Sky is a great platform.”