What a difference a year in a Russian prison makes!
Brittney Griner, a WNBA star who made international headlines after being arrested while attempting to travel from Moscow with cannabis oil in a vaping cartridge in her luggage shortly after the war in Ukraine began, says that the national anthem “hit different” while she and her teammates stood for the Star-Spangled Banner before their preseason game Saturday night.
US Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) basketball player Brittney Griner, who was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport and later charged with illegal possession of cannabis, holds a picture of her team as she stands inside a defendant’s cage before a court hearing in Khimki outside Moscow, on August 4, 2022. (EVGENIA NOVOZHENINA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
“Hearing the national anthem, it definitely hit different,” Griner said. “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.”
Phoenix Mercury coach Vanessa Nygaard agrees.
“We looked at each other, and we just had chills,” Nygaard said. “We were here last year for all of it. I’m getting emotional about it now. Just to see her back out there — it’s an absolute miracle. It was amazing. It’s giving me chills again.”
Griner’s sudden love for the Star-Spangled Banner “hits” differently as well.
After all, it was Griner who said in 2020 that the playing of the national anthem at sporting events should be stopped altogether as a way to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement that was burning the country to the ground at the time.
But even if the anthem was played, Griner vowed to protest.
Phoenix Mercury fan Carley Givens takes a photo of a “Black Lives Matter” mural depicting Brittney Griner outside the Footprint Center on December 08, 2022, in Phoenix, Arizona. WNBA player Brittney Griner was released after being detained in Russia since February as part of a prisoner swap that involved Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
“I’m going to protest regardless. I’m not going to be out there for the National Anthem,” she said. “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.”
Why the sudden change of heart?
In many ways, Griner experienced what all radical leftists and anti-anthem woke wackadoos would benefit from experiencing: Personal understanding of how a true dictatorship works.
The vast majority of radicals who oppose America, the anthem, and anything even remotely patriotic, are under the ultra-privileged notion that America is some tyranny. This is a privileged notion because the overwhelming majority of these ingrates have never slept on an empty stomach, have never been further than walking distance from drinking water, and have always been able to move about and speak their minds freely.
That’s because, contrary to their stereotypical viewers of conservatives, radical leftists have limited or no understanding of how the rest of the world works and zero understanding of how truly great America is.
Griner for a taste of that after being sentenced to a Russia work camp for 9-and-a-half years for having some cannabis oil in a vape cartridge. No one should labor under the false impression that Griner will vote for Trump or DeSantis and become a card-carrying member of the NRA. In fact, she’s probably being instructed by her communist handlers on how to walk back her pro-anthem comments as you read this.
But it’s too late. She said the quiet part out loud. Regardless of what she says next, it’s clear Brittney Griner got in-depth instruction on just how great her country is.