Brittney Griner shared with me her fear of being alone and forgotten. don’t let it come true | WNBA

Brittney Griner lowered her listless gaming face, gave me wide, sad eyes, and said, “The nightmare for me was definitely feeling forgotten and ending up alone.”

I didn’t see any more superstars. My heart ached for a young person who was an ocean away from everyone she knew. “I came here and I was all alone … I was just like, ah hell no, my life is ending,” she said.

We can’t let Brittney’s fear of forgetting, being alone and far from home come true.

It was 2014 and we were sitting in an empty conference room in Hangzhou, China. I had flown 20 hours from Los Angeles to direct an ESPN documentary about their first overseas season. Fresh out of college, she was drowning with homesickness. She didn’t speak the language and no one on her team spoke English. She didn’t like food and survived on KFC, Pizza Hut and Skittles. And she spent her waking hours either on the hardwood or in her gray penthouse suite at the Zijingang International Hotel. Imagine all the melancholy of Lost in Translation and none of Bill Murray.

She was there for the money. The No. 1 pick in the 2013 WNBA Draft, Brittney earned $49,000 in her first season with the Phoenix Mercury versus the $600,000 she earned with the Zhejiang Golden Bulls. If a basketball player wants to make the highest dollar, she has to go abroad. Half of the WNBA travel to places like China, Russia, Turkey and France for much higher salaries, raising questions about whether their US careers count as their true off-season.

As I rewatch her interview tapes today, I have the feeling that Brittney is speaking out about her fears not then but now, from a Russian prison cell where she has been held since February 17th. Again she is abroad because that is where the money is. UMMC Ekaterinburg, where she has played and won back-to-back championships since 2015, is paying her more than $1 million, compared to around $228,000 from the Phoenix Mercury.

Moscow claims it was caught with hash oil at Sheremetyevo Airport, a crime punishable by 10 years in prison. But why should we conclude that this black woman is a criminal and that Russian officials are not lying? After years of passing through customs in Russia, do we think she would pack hash oil now? The allegation of “large-scale drug trafficking” by the Russian authorities would be ridiculous if the stakes weren’t so appalling.

Keep in mind that this is the government claiming that the warship Moskva erupted in “fire of unknown origin” a few weeks ago, instead of admitting that in all likelihood Ukrainian missiles were responsible for its sinking.

The author with Brittney Griner in 2014. Photo: Courtesy of Melissa Johnson

I trust Russian officials to tell the truth about Brittney like I trust a colander to hold water.

There was largely silence in the White House, the WNBA and Brittney’s family until Tuesday’s announcement by the US State Department that it would classify Brittney as “wrongfully detained.” As former WNBA star Lisa Leslie said, “We were told not to make a fuss about it so they can’t use it as a pawn, so to speak, in this war situation.”

When I first heard this policy, I did not question it. I haven’t posted anything about Brittney on social media. So often as women we are told to behave, to trust experts who know better – to comply. I’m a documentary filmmaker. I know nothing about international hostage negotiations.

The time of silence is now over.

Weeks have turned into months. A Moscow court recently announced that her detention would be extended until May 19 – a date that could be pushed further into the future before one can say “human rights abuse.” Brittney could be held without trial for up to 18 months, according to Tom Firestone, a former legal counsel at the US Embassy in Moscow.

Tuesday’s White House policy change could help reduce her sentence, but it might as well make things worse at a time of heightened political tensions between the US and Russia. Brittney could prove to be a political hostage in a violent, homophobic country ruled by a sociopath who once called teaching gender fluidity a “crime against humanity.”

Brittney, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who has also won NCAA, WNBA, and EuroLeague championships, is the rock star of women’s basketball. She dives in at will, flaunting her gender nonconformity in couture suits and, much like fellow Britney, likes to wear albino snakes. She is a second married Black queer woman and a proud LGBTQ+ activist. Few hate the values ​​embodied by Brittney more than Vladimir Putin.

We must not wait for their process to be changed again. Or – god forbid – just stomp, scream and make all the fuss too late after we learn she disappeared under “mysterious circumstances”.

I believe the Biden administration and Brittney’s team have been working hard behind closed doors to bring her home. I also believe that the “please don’t make a fuss” embargo has provided a cover for the misogyny and racism of many Americans.

Watch out for the self-righteous “she gets what she deserves” attitude. Some American “patriots” hate Brittney for exercising her right to stay in the dressing room to hear the national anthem in honor of Breonna Taylor and other victims of police brutality. They don’t want to hear her say, ‘I don’t mean that as disrespectful to our country. My father was in Vietnam for 30 years and was a judicial officer. I wanted to be a cop before basketball. I am proud of my country.”

Ask yourself what the heck is that for.

Around 100,000 black women and girls were missing in the United States in 2020 – yet they rarely make national headlines. According to NPR, the media is four times more likely to report a missing white person than someone who is black or brown. (Some call it “Missing White Woman Syndrome.”)

In Brittney’s case, when does cooperative silence become complicit neglect? The answer is now. Today’s announcement by the State Department leaves no doubt.

Imagine that instead of a 6ft 9in tattooed, dreadlocked, black woman in a Russian prison, it was a pretty blonde with a husband at home. Or what if it was LeBron James or Steph Curry? Or Tom Brady? People would have lost their damn minds. “Don’t make a fuss” wouldn’t have been an option because no matter what the State Department ordered, it would have been a headline on every newscast and featured twice an hour on ESPN. Candlelight fan vigils would have dotted America from sea to sea.

Perhaps such “hype” would have been bad for hostage negotiations — but the lack of an outcry says it all about why Brittney had to go to an authoritarian, homophobic country to even get paid.

At the end of my shoot in China with Brittney, I asked one last question:

“Flight or invisibility, which power would you choose?”

What a stupid question. Obviously a basketball player would choose to fly.

“Invisibility,” she said confidently.

I frowned. But it made sense as I followed her through the bowels of the Shanghai subway station—every neck craned to see a young legend stride past. At an open air market, too many people were pointing and staring for me to count. She graciously posed for photos with fan after fan. It must be exhausting to be a spectacle everywhere.

I didn’t use the invisibility moment in the movie, but I’m obsessed with it these days. Like Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, it feels like her wish has been granted, but in the form of a curse.

I wish she had chosen the flight.