This is the third in a series on Brittney Griner by Ernie. (Here’s No. 1 and No. 2)
by Ernie McCray
Seems, at times,
that our nation
has trouble loving,
caring,
as evidenced
by so many
people finding joy
in Brittney Griner’s
9-year sentence
for weed possession
in a Russian prison,
a penal system renowned
for its cruelty,
it’s “lock them up
and throw away the key” mentality,
citing, in their reasoning,
that she’s “Un-American,”
that she disrespects the flag
and the anthem,
none of which is true,
but, if it were true,
you want her in a Gulag?
For traveling with a substance in her bag
that shouldn’t draw any more attention
than if she were carrying
a package of chewing gum
or some potato chips,
Visine eye drops,
chocolates, lipstick, bean dip
or paper clips?
Can you haters call on your
human instinct
to sympathize and empathize
with sensitivity and civility,
emotions that would lead you
to, say, think about how desperate
Ms. Griner’s mom and dad
and wife and friends
must be to hold her
and wrap her long
athletic body in their arms again,
how eager her teammates and coaches
and her league
must be to have her back
with the Phoenix Mercury,
how victims of playground bullies
and the gay community
are missing how she’s spoken for them,
with the same to be said
about the homeless folks
she’s tended to
through the Heart and Sole Shoe Drive
she organized for them,
driving around, at first,
with shoes in the trunk of her car
offering them much needed
comfort for their feet.
To her detractors, I say:
your lack of support for this woman
is what’s truly Un-American
and disrespectful to the flag
and the anthem,
as they, supposedly,
are about the ties
that bind us together
as a country,
a connection that’s coming apart
like a structure
held together by loose screws.
All to say:
Brittney needs our love
more than our ridicule.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
RIGHT ON! She is a political prisoner of Putin.