"Putin, having been shaped by a Cold War-era K.G.B. that specialized in manipulating U.S. racial tensions, was almost certainly aware ..."

"... that a perception that [Brittney] Griner might receive insufficient attention could be used to his advantage. The activism that resulted from that perception no doubt helped push the Biden Administration to make a deal rather than to risk repeating the miscalculations of the Reagan Administration. Still, the Griner affair may yet reiterate a crucial lesson of December, 1983—that inequality, or even the appearance of inequality, is not only a liability at home but an impediment in foreign affairs. The irony is that Putin, in the most cynical way possible, has demonstrated that Black lives really do matter, by highlighting just how much you can achieve by placing one in jeopardy."

Writes Jelani Cobb in "Brittney Griner and the Role of Race in Diplomacy/Griner’s release recalls the lessons of the effort to free Robert Goodman, an African American Navy navigator, from Syria" (The New Yorker).

"Oh, no, I have been in prison for 10 months now listening to Russian."

Said Brittney Griner to Roger Carstens, special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, quoted in "Griner ‘compassionate, humble’ after release from Russia/‘We talked about everything under the sun,’ says the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs" (WaPo).

Carstens had gotten her to her seat on the plane home and told her: "Please feel free to decompress. We will give you your space." They "ended up talking for about 12 hours out of the 18-hour flight." And she also went up to everyone on the plane “looked them in the eyes, shook their hands and asked about them, got their names, making a personal connection with them.”

“We talked about everything under the sun.... I was left with the impression that this is an intelligent, passionate, compassionate, humble, interesting person, a patriotic person, but, above all, authentic."

"Within the Justice Department, officials have long chafed at some of the prisoner exchanges pushed by the State Department..."

"... in part because law enforcement officials tend to believe that authorities should adhere to a 'like for like' rule, in which only individuals of equal status or criminal history should be exchanged. For example, exchanging spies for spies has long been an accepted practice at both the State Department and the Justice Department — but federal law enforcement officials frequently object to proposed swaps of convicted criminals for people who committed relatively minor offenses.... Robert Zachariasiewicz, a former DEA agent who was involved in the case against Bout, said... 'We just showed that it is really useful to have an American in your back pocket because you never know when you need them to trade'....

From "In freeing Griner, Biden faced resistance abroad and at home/The president faced opposition from the Justice Department, which viewed a one-for-one swap involving WNBA star Brittney Griner and the notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout as a mistake" (WaPo).

Now that President Biden has brought Brittney Griner back home — how do you think she will/should behave — obeisant to authority or as free as she wants to be?

Moments ago I spoke to Brittney Griner.

She is safe.
She is on a plane.
She is on her way home. pic.twitter.com/FmHgfzrcDT

— President Biden (@POTUS) December 8, 2022

In our first conversation about the news of the homecoming of Brittney Griner, Meade and I entered a bet about how she will behave.

"If the president is working so hard to free someone who is in jail in Russia for some weed, shouldn’t we free people in America?"

"There are people in jail in America for the same stuff. Shouldn’t we free them too? My opinion is that people should not be in jail for non-violent drug crimes."

Elon Musk said what many of us have been thinking. He's quoted at "Elon Musk gives scalding take on Biden’s push to free Brittney Griner" (NY Post).

In other Brittney Griner news at the NY Post:

Has an American President ever sung the national anthem into a microphone before a crowd?

I know President Obama sang "Amazing Grace" into a microphone — and "Let's Stay Together" — so we know he could sing into a microphone. Did any other President sing into a microphone? But what I really want to know is did any American President ever do this? — sing the national anthem into a microphone:

I found that because the Russian national anthem came up — 2 posts down — in the context of learning what lies in store for Brittney Griner if indeed she ends up serving her sentence in a Russian penal colony, where prisoners must sing the anthem, “Glory to Our Free Fatherland,” every morning at 6:05 a.m.

Brittney Griner, when she was a free woman in America, opposed the playing of the American National Anthem at basketball games. In 2020, 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... I’ll not be out there."

There's grisly irony, and I would not laugh at that harsh turn of fate. I've been thinking about the power of national anthems. Listening to a formal presentation of the Russian anthem, in spite of myself, I get chills. It's in the music. Look at the faces of the people, in that clip with Putin. It's reaching them deeply and merging them in shared resolve.

Resolve to do what? 

Would we Americans want a President who would sing our national anthem like that, or do we prefer our Presidents singing "Amazing Grace" and our anthem safely ensconced where it belongs, at basketball, baseball, and football games?

"Modern-day Russian penal colonies have become moneymaking enterprises... [E]very correctional facility has a production unit such as a sewing factory..."

"... or a woodworking or metalworking shop, with most of the profits going to intermediary companies buying and selling on low-cost goods, or to the prison authorities 'through kickbacks by companies that purchase the goods directly.'... [O]pposition politician Alexei Navalny... painted a grim picture of life inside Penal Colony No. 2, calling it 'our friendly concentration camp.' He accused guards of denying him proper medical care or the chance to sleep and described dehumanizing surveillance. Media investigations have reported abuse of prisoners at such facilities."

From "Brittney Griner may go to a Russian penal colony. Here’s what you need to know" (WaPo).

Here's the article linked at "our friendly concentration camp": "Putin foe Navalny once described prison life with dark humor. Now his messages are just dark" (WaPo). The "posts" in social media were made, we're told, by "anonymous members of his team," who have somehow received messages from Nalvany, messages written in his "familiar wry style":

"A Russian court on Thursday found U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner guilty of deliberately bringing cannabis-infused vape cartridges into Russia..."

"... despite them [sic] being illegal, after the athlete said she had made an honest mistake by packing them. Her sentencing, which is set to take place later on Thursday, could pave the way for an high-profile prisoner swap between Russia and the United States that would include the 31-year-old athlete and an imprisoned Russian who was once a prolific arms dealers...."

Reuters reports. 

That news just came in. I noticed after searching for the name of the basketball player held in Russia, because I was confused when I saw this headline in the sidebar as I was reading a new Washington Post article: "Brittney Griner, Brianna Turner call for WNBA to stop playing national anthem this season." 

“I honestly feel we should not play the national anthem during our season,” Griner said... “I’m not going to be out there for the national anthem.... Yeah, we’re here to play basketball. But 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. Go for a run, go to the store to buy some candy, drive your car without the fear of being wrongfully pulled over. I just want to challenge everybody to do more. Write the story that might be tough. Take a chance. Ask a question that’s tough. Don’t let it be silent."

Looking more closely, I see that article is from 2020. Speaking of living in "a world where we can’t just live," where we can't "wake up and do whatever we want to do."

UPDATE: Brittney Griner was sentenced to 9 years in a penal colony.

"She went in there loaded up with drugs into a hostile territory where they’re very vigilant about drugs. They don’t like drugs. And she got caught."

"And now we’re supposed to get her out — and she makes, you know, a lot of money, I guess. We’re supposed to get her out for an absolute killer and one of the biggest arms dealers in the world. Killed many Americans. Killed many people."

 
Said Donald Trump, quoted in "Trump: Brittney Griner prisoner swap for ‘Merchant of Death’ doesn’t ‘seem like a very good trade’" (NY Post).

A "slightly gender-ambiguous athlete who reads either as a pretty hot boy or a trans-girl, and not particularly a person who falls into the realm of how people see beautiful."

There's a 6'8" female basketball player — Brittney Griner — and the NYT article about her is on the subject of how she "redefine[s] feminine beauty ideals."

The quote in my title is from a model casting agent. I guess women, more than men, if they happen to grow really tall, think of becoming models, rather than basketball players. But Griner is a basketball player. Why discuss her as if she is a model? We don't much care what the male basketball players look like or think about stretching our concepts of male beauty when they don't conform to conventional standards.