OPINION:
WNBA’s Brittney Griner, who said in 2020 that the national anthem has no place on the basketball court or before games, and then went to jail in Russia for a crime she said she didn’t mean to commit, is now singing a different tune and told reporters after her recent team competition in Phoenix: “Hearing the national anthem, it definitely hit different.”
Perhaps America should send all its young knee-bending, pig-sock-wearing, Hands Up, Don’t Shoot displaying, Black Lives Matter slogan-slinging professional athletes to Russia for some good old-fashioned jail time. They leave hating America. They return respecting America. That’s called woke, American patriot style.
Griner, the 2019 MVP runner-up for her center play with Team Mercury, said this in 2020, after refusing to take to the floor during the pre-game playing of “The Star Spangled Banner”: “I honestly feel we should not play the national anthem during our season. I think we should take that much of a stand.”
So all her teammates followed suit.
In the season opener against the Los Angeles Sparks, no players showed the proper respect for the anthem. And their plans were to continue the disrespect throughout the season.
Again, Griner, 2020: “I’m going to protest regardless. I’m not going to be out there for the national anthem. If the league continues to want to play it, that’s fine. It will be all season long — I’ll not be out there. I feel like more are going to probably do the same thing. I can only speak for myself.”
Then came February of 2022 and Griner was stopped by authorities at Moscow’s airport after a customs dog sniffed out drugs in her carry-on bag. Officers searched; officers found vape cartridges with cannabis oil; officers took her into custody on charges of smuggling “narcotic drugs” into the country.
She spent 10 months in Russian custody, during which she explained that she never meant to bring cannabis into Russia, but had been packing quickly for the trip and slipped the drugs in “inadvertently.” She pleaded guilty anyway. She was sentenced to nine years behind Russian bars. President Biden’s White House ultimately made a horrible trade to free Griner — they gave up international arms dealer Viktor Bout. For a basketball player.
For an America-despising basketball player.
For an America-despising basketball player who used her national platform to spread her scorn and disrespect for America as far and wide as she could.
Well, now she’s back. Griner is back in play.
And thankfully, happily, she’s learned a bit of a lesson about American Exceptionalism.
“Hearing the national anthem, it definitely hit different,” she said after her first game back in Phoenix, The Blaze reported. “It’s like when you go for the Olympics, you’re sitting there, about to get gold put on your neck, the flags are going up and the anthem is playing. It just hits different. Being here today — it means a lot. I’m grateful to be here, that’s for sure. I’m not going to take a day for granted.”
That’s good. That’s great.
It’s too bad, though, that Griner had to travel all the way to Russia’s jails for 10 months behind bars to learn why America is the best.
Perhaps Democrats should make the same trip. Some people just take longer than others to learn.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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