Not three years ago, Brittney Griner refused to take the floor when the WNBA played the national anthem before tipoff. “I think we should take that much of a stand,” she said at the time, arguing that “basketball doesn’t mean anything in a world where we can’t just live. We can’t wake up and do whatever we want to do.” Such is the plight, she said, of being black in America.
Yet it was in part Griner’s race, as well as her sexual orientation—she is a lesbian—that made her detention by Russia in February a high-profile news story and turned her case into a cause célèbre for activists and journalists, but we repeat ourselves.
It is also why the Biden administration on Thursday struck an ill-advised deal to trade Griner’s freedom for that of Viktor Bout, an arms dealer and weapons smuggler who was convicted in 2011 of conspiring to murder American citizens. Not included in the deal was Russia’s release of Paul Whelan, a white, cisgender, heterosexual former Marine arrested in late 2018 on trumped-up charges. For all of Griner’s complaints about being black in this country, she’s gotten far better treatment than her white counterpart.
Whelan told CNN in a phone interview Thursday from a remote Russian penal colony that “I am greatly disappointed that more has not been done to secure my release, especially as the four-year anniversary of my arrest is coming up. I was arrested for a crime that never occurred.”
Then there are the merits of the deal itself. Griner will be greeted as a hero when she touches down in the United States, but the Russian who will walk free is a dangerous thug who has earned his nickname: “The Merchant of Death.” His release will do grievous harm to American national security—he was convicted for attempting to sell weapons to Colombian terrorists who would have used them to target American troops—and Politico reports that Pentagon officials are already raising the specter that his release will fuel “conflicts across the world.” Griner is no hero.
So how did this happen? The Russians concluded correctly that the Biden administration’s foreign policy is best understood through the lens of “antiracism.” The concept, popularized by Ibram X. Kendi, justifies new discrimination to account for historic discrimination. The decision to exchange a lesbian millionaire of color for a notorious arms trafficker at the expense of a Caucasian cisgendered Marine is consistent with this administration’s values. After all, Biden on his first day in office signed an executive order to advance racial equity throughout the federal government.
The problem with this approach is that it aims to remedy an abstract, historical injustice by perpetrating a tangible injustice in the present. Biden’s approach to negotiations should have been guided by the facts of Griner’s and Whelan’s cases and by the national interest. He was instead guided by identity politics and “antiracism.” Paul Whelan is paying the price.
Published under: Anthem Protests, Anti-Racism, Biden Administration, Feature, Foreign Policy, Identity Politics, National Security, Prison, Russia
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This Shameful Prisoner Swap by the LGBTQ, woke Biden administration was solely based on Brittney Griner being a Black female Lesbian.
“Biden on his first day in office signed an executive order to advance racial equity throughout the federal government.
equity – the quality of being fair and impartial.
(This woke, LGBTQ obsessed Biden administration IS NOT fair or impartial.)
The problem with this approach is that it aims to remedy an abstract, historical injustice by perpetrating a tangible injustice in the present. Biden’s approach to negotiations should have been guided by the facts of Griner’s and Whelan’s cases and by the national interest. He was instead guided by identity politics and “antiracism.” Paul Whelan is paying the price.“
Exactly. HER “Status” as a black (one point) Female (another point) and lesbian (3 points)< put her 'above all the other 3 folks we have in russian prisons.. THAT WAS The only reason they went for her..
AND ANYONE thinking that this will change her mind on DISSING our flag and anthem, has another thing coming.
To be expected—look at how they have handled everything else militarily.
After the traitorous swap of 5 taliban for the piece of walking excrement, Bergdhal, i thought we couldn’t get any worse.
And I just bet this ungrateful drug using _ _ _ ch disrespects our flag again the first chance she gets. According to Biden, black lesbians matter, but a white Marine heterosexual doesn’t
welcome to the biden/obama freak show with star attraction brit griner
This exchange is thematic in Biden’s continuous, not second, childhood. It’s Sesame Street logic. Brittney Grimes, Paul Whelan, Kamal Harris, and Ketanji Brown Harris – “Which one is not like the other?”
She represents all the qualities that the woke left admire: America hating, lesbian, pot smoking, black et al whereas Pauk Whelan and all the other possible candidates are the exact opposite! Is it any surprise then?
Good thing Bin Laden is dead or the rotten Dem Party wretches in charge would trade him for any black &/or LGBTQ US celebrity caught taking drugs into foreign countries where it’s a known very serious crime.
Griner should have been left to serve her 9 year sentence, not only because she is guilty, but because she is also an embarrassment to entire USA for being so incredibly stupid as to take any illegal drugs into Russia or China where even the most celebrity privileged low IQ US citizen dullard should know better.
That’s the thing.. SHE IS USED TO US ‘injustice’, where celebs can do what ever the hell they want, and get away with it.. SO Schmucks like her, think every other nation should also be like that.