And on the Topic of Trust

Brittney Griner, Brand Identity, and the Conditions of Redemption

Yesterday was WNBA star Brittney Griner’s first press conference since being released from prison in Russia. It was heartening to see her alive, well, and able to return to the sport that she’s trained her whole life to play at the highest level. She was arrested in February 2022 at a Moscow airport after Russian authorities said a search of her luggage revealed vape cartridges containing cannabis oil. In May 2022, the State Department declared her “wrongfully detained,” a designation which meant that the U.S. government would be involved in negotiating her release. Her trial began several weeks later, and, despite whatever negotiations were underway, she was sentenced to nine years. The movement to #FreeBG didn’t begin in earnest until her family, friends, and supporters decided to become more vocal about the matter. Cherelle Griner, Brittney’s wife, revealed what led to that decision to CBS last July. “Initially, I was told, you know, we are going to try to reserve, we’re going to try to handle this behind scenes and let’s not raise her value and, you know, stay quiet. You know, I did that, and, respectfully, we’re over a hundred and forty days at this point. That does not work. So I will not be quiet anymore.” After those statements, she was contacted by President Biden and Vice President Harris for the first time, both of whom pledged to do everything possible to bring Brittney home. It was the mounting public pressure on the U.S. government developed specifically by Brittney’s family, friends, and supporters that generated their own leverage in a situation meant to use and dispose of them as pawns.

The dominant way to think about why the U.S. seemingly dragged its feet on Brittney’s detention is the context of international affairs. The New Yorker observed that, “A foreign citizen arrested in the possession of a tiny amount of drugs might usually be given no more than a month in jail, a fine, and deportation. But Griner was not a normal foreigner, and this was not a normal situation. A week after her arrest, Russia had invaded Ukraine, and relations between Russia and the U.S. were the worst they had been since the beginning of the Cold War.” This is valid. Perhaps Brittney was just an unfortunate casualty of war. However, another way was offered by Coach Vanessa Nygaard of the Phoenix Mercury, Brittney’s team, during a post-game news conference. She remarked that, if Brittney were LeBron James, she would already be home - “It’s a statement about the value of women. It’s a statement about the value of a black person. It’s a statement about the value of a gay person. All of those things. We know it, and so that’s what hurts a little more.” Lebron himself questioned, “How can she feel like America has her back?” on his talk show, “The Shop.”

Still another way to think about this is in the context of Brittney’s public stance against the National Anthem as a representation of antiblackness. While maintaining that she “had nothing against” America, Brittney rejected the presumption that she, in her professional capacity, had to continue consenting to a demonstration of allegiance to a country that allowed for the murder of Breonna Taylor. “I’m going to protest regardless,” she said. "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.” When subsequently asked about participating in the Olympics, she spoke of her participation in the context of solidarity with black women as opposed to U.S. nationalism - “I understand, you're playing for your country at that point. I’m glad I’m able to look to my left and to my right at my sisters and see we’re all together fighting.”

Now, back to yesterday’s press conference. When Brittney was asked about the need to play overseas during the off season (a reference to the pay gap between NBA and WNBA players which forces WNBA players to seek employment outside of the U.S. to supplement their income), her immediate response was, “I’m never going overseas to play again unless I’m representing my country at the Olympics. […] That would be the only time I leave U.S. soil. To represent the USA.” She delivered this response to light, knowing chuckles from the audience. It was, apparently, funny and ironic to witness someone like her be willed into submission with a smile on her face and gratitude in her voice. In that moment, the sports media, who were ostensibly gathered there to celebrate BG’s return, reflected a pervasive right-wing sentiment - “so, you appreciate America now?”

The truth is that Brittney’s expression of patriotism is her only path to redemption. If she questions the USA’s response, she will be dismissed as an ungrateful criminal. She is only respected and redeemed to the extent that she sings the praises of the very country whose pay practices forced her overseas in the first place. Within the span of three years, she has gone from questioning black people’s participation in a collective performance of nationalism to disavowing any desire to leave U.S. soil unless it is in the name of the nation. She is no longer a potentially militant face of protest against police brutality in America, but the face of Americans detained overseas.

These kinds of determinations about who will be rescued and who will be sacrificed are, ultimately, calculated choices about brand rehabilitation. Fox News and CNN demonstrated as much this week when two stalwart personalities for the networks, Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon, were fired for becoming threats to the brands’ identities. It’s speculated that Carlson’s termination was due to comments that he made denigrating Fox News (known for promoting loyalty to conservativism and its institutions), while Lemon’s was due to instances of misogyny and other troubling incidents during his years at CNN (known for promoting loyalty to liberalism and its institutions).

So, the price of Brittney Griner’s life being returned to her is her public profession of trust in America’s brand as the defender of democracy at home and abroad. But it is a particular kind of trust. It’s not the kind that’s been earned as a result of consistent demonstrations of honesty and justice over time. Or the kind where assurances of fidelity have been true before and can be reasonably believed to be true in the future. Instead, it’s the kind that comes by way of transaction. That performs grand gestures and, then, demands to never be questioned again. That shifts the onus from the one wanting to be trusted to the one whose trust is being requested. This kind of one-way vulnerability is extortion by another name. The presumption is not that trust is a sustained condition revealing the character and integrity of an actor, but a manipulative bargaining chip used as a prerequisite for an actor doing anything virtuous at all - “Don’t you trust me? I’ll only be in this with you if you do.” Demanding trust from those you know you’ve violated as a precondition for a relationship to continue isn’t indicative of real repair. It is, instead, the persistence of cruelty and corruption. The act of trusting is both a physical and a metaphysical consideration. I can only trust you if I have confidence in your essence (the nature of who you are), and, then, how your essence is corroborated by what you’ve proven that you are and aren’t capable of.

When the mainstream media comments on black people’s pervasive “distrust” in American institutions, that distrust can be attributed, not only to the general lack of care about our hardships, but also the conditions that we must agree to in order to access relief and redemption. It’s not just a lack of trust in the ability to prevent or deliver a certain outcome, but, rather, a lack of trust in the nature and viability of the relationship itself.