Brittney Griner’s Smile

Of all the good news since our general elections, one thing most sticks in my mind. It’s not Reverend Warnock’s triumphant announcement that “The people have spoken,” although that warmed my heart, too. It’s Brittney Griner’s smile.

Too tall to fit comfortably in the small plane that would deliver her from evil, Griner was hunched over. Her smile was tentative, for she was still in Russian custody and on display. But it was real—a sign of relief, of pleasure and of simple human happiness. She looked wan and tired but in good health, considering. Our military doctors verified her general health on her arrival home.

More than any recent thing, that smile let me know how much I love my country. We’re in the midst of a still-raging pandemic—three if you count RSV and this year’s especially nasty flu. After knowing about global warming for half a century, we just enacted the first serious legislation to deal with it and to lead the world in doing so. And we’re indirectly enmeshed in a horrible war started by a modern Russian Nazi.

With all this going on, the government of the mightiest nation in our species’ history spent months and considerable resources—and made some sacrifices—just to bring one of us home.

It matters that Griner is both Black and a Lesbian. Putin demonizes people like her just to maintain his vile tyranny and (he hopes) support for his atrocious war. But our government was willing to trade a convicted gun-runner (who had already served much of his sentence) just for one of us who was wrongfully held.

That’s a biblical triumph of justice and love. But think also of the message.

In the age of nuclear weapons, we can no longer rely on power alone. President Biden can’t do what Teddy Roosevelt famously did in demanding of a Moroccan warlord that he return a kidnapped American or be killed, saying “Pedicaris alive or Raisuli dead.” We had to give up something, a convicted gun runner known as the “Merchant of Death.”

But in all the vile tyrannies on Earth—and there are many—there must not be a single downtrodden subject who, on seeing that smile, would not wish to be in Brittney Griner’s place, that is, one of us. That’s why Ukraine will win its war with Russia, and that’s why our system will prevail, as long as we hold to our values.


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