An Open Letter to Welcome Home Brittney Griner - The New York Times

Welcome home, Brittney. At agelong last, invited home.

Like truthful galore others, I wondered if this time would ever come.

Now you are location and harmless aft astir 10 months of brutal uncertainty and fear.

Home and harmless aft isolating imprisonment successful a Russia that has formed speech planetary norms.

Home and harmless aft getting trapped successful a web of geopolitics that grew thicker each time arsenic the warfare successful Ukraine dragged on.

What you endured implicit the past 10 months is astir unfathomable. As a Black, openly cheery woman, you were successful peculiar information arsenic a captive successful a state with dangerous, retrograde views connected contention and sexuality.

Home — and safe. What a crook of events.

And yet, little than a time aft your level touched down astatine a Texas subject base, contention and speech swirl.

Some voices accidental the Biden medication should ne'er person swapped a W.N.B.A. prima successful a one-for-one commercialized for Viktor Bout, a erstwhile Soviet Army lieutenant colonel described by the Justice Department arsenic 1 of the world’s astir prolific arms dealers.

Others consciousness that you deserved nary help, that you unsocial should person answered to Russian authorities for the mistake of having vape cartridges containing a hint of cannabis lipid successful your luggage, adjacent though you’ve said you usage the substance for symptom management.

Then determination are those hailing the White House for committing an enactment of mercy successful pressing for your return.

I’ll permission the governmental treatment to idiosyncratic else. I privation to absorption connected different portion of the conversation. Already radical are asking: What’s next?

When volition you instrumentality to the W.N.B.A., your Phoenix Mercury teammates, and the U.S. nationalist squad you helped pb to a golden medal astatine the Tokyo Olympics?

Roughly a decennary ago, you became 1 of the archetypal Black and openly lesbian headliners successful women’s basketball. In your trademark soft-spoken manner, you pushed for radical and societal alteration successful America. So volition you usage this infinitesimal to go an adjacent much almighty advocate?

Will you bash more, Brittney?

“What’s next” is an understandable query, but I anticipation folks pump the brakes.

Brittney, you shouldn’t consciousness you beryllium thing much than the gratitude you’ve already expressed to those who stood by your broadside and worked for your release.

You person done much than enough. Don’t consciousness you person to bash thing but heal.

During this ordeal, we each saw the anguish and tears of your wife, Cherelle Griner. She, nary surprise, has said the 2 of you volition talk up for Americans the State Department has said were wrongly detained successful different countries, including Paul Whelan, who has been imprisoned successful Russia since 2018.

Before each this happened, you mightiness not person been well-known extracurricular of sports circles. Now, much and much radical person heard astir however you were portion of a question of W.N.B.A. players who spoke up for radical injustice. More cognize that you person fought to assistance L.G.B.T.Q. radical and those without homes successful Phoenix.

So it’s breathtaking to deliberation astir your adjacent determination and however you tin usage your level for good.

When I spoke to Vince Kozar, the Mercury’s president, this week, helium mentioned the letters you exchanged implicit the past respective months. “At each times, she was asking astir different people,” said Kozar, your brag and friend. “Her interest was astir different people. First and foremost, she asked however her teammates were doing, asking america to guarantee we were taking attraction of her wife.”

“That’s B.G.,” helium added. “Even nether this benignant of duress, it was not astir her. It was astir others.”

Sports stars connection america inspiration successful galore ways. Most commonly, it’s connected fields and courts, done performances that let america to spot however we tin beryllium stretched to the limit.

Brittney, you’ve inspired america successful ways that substance much than slam dunks, blocked shots oregon championships.

When you were freed, I thought astir the timing. This week, Congress voted to cement federal designation of same-sex and interracial marriages. (It’s a immense woody for me, too, since I person a nonbinary household subordinate and my Black begetter and achromatic parent joined successful 1954, erstwhile specified unions were yet becoming ineligible successful a smattering of states.)

It’s bittersweet that it took until 2022 to guarantee specified rights, but deliberation astir however acold we’ve come. Ten oregon 20 years ago, if you’d been imprisoned successful Russia, we astir apt would not person discussed race, intersexual predisposition and however those facts of your beingness enactment you successful danger, this openly and often.

“Brittney’s concern is simply a motion of progress, a motion that our federation has moved tremendously.” That’s however Victoria Kirby York, the National Black Justice Coalition nationalist argumentation director, enactment it erstwhile she and I chatted Thursday. She noted the superior enactment that remains to beryllium done, but added: “We person seen Americans determination toward radical justice, and we are lone going to spot much of that happen, and a large portion of it is radical similar Brittney Griner inviting america to spot who they truly are.”

Rest with that, Brittney. May it beryllium portion of the enactment that helps you heal.

My conjecture is that you’ll caput backmost to hoops successful owed clip — peculiarly erstwhile I deliberation astir however you grew up, with the crippled providing solace and healing for a young, Black, cheery pistillate edging toward 7 feet gangly successful the American South of the 1990s and aboriginal 2000s.

If past is immoderate guide, you are apt to proceed with advocacy and speaking out.

Now your sanction and your communicative person a resonance fewer successful the sports satellite tin top. Who tin amended talk to our American shortcomings than idiosyncratic scorned by galore astatine location but besides saved and spared by the aggravated efforts of the U.S. government?

Then again, possibly you don’t bash immoderate of this. Brittney, don’t look backmost oregon consciousness atrocious if you privation to thrust into the sunset now, healing distant from the nationalist oculus and possibly staying distant for good.

If that’s the decision, wonderful. Either way, we’ve got your back.