WNBA star Brittney Griner intends to stand for the national anthem during the upcoming season after spending nearly 10 months in a Russian prison, according to her agent.
It was an about-face from the basketball star, who stated in July 2020 that she didn’t feel the national anthem should be played during the WNBA season, adding that she would not be on the court for the anthem if it continued to be played before games.
On Friday, Griner’s agent penned an op-ed in Time explaining why Griner will stand for the national anthem during the 2023 WNBA season.
“Last year, most WNBA teams chose to remain in their locker rooms during the national anthem, in a gesture of unified protest against the incongruity between the values the anthem signifies and the realities for Black people in America,” Lindsay Kagawa Colas wrote. “This year, as so much remains unchanged, some teams or players may do the same. Others may sit or kneel. Still others, including Brittney Griner, plan to stand up — physically for the anthem itself and symbolically for the rights of their peers to make themselves heard and express dissent loudly and boldly, and in accordance with the proudest traditions of this country, however they see fit.”
“Having been put in a literal cage, too small for her frame, stripped of her essential American freedoms, and deprived of even her most basic rights during a sham trial and unjust sentencing, Brittney, supported by many other players, will make a statement this WNBA season by standing tall for those uniquely American freedoms — the most important of which being the absolute and inviolable and constitutionally protected freedom to stand, sit, kneel, praise, protest, and otherwise make your voice heard,” Kagawa Colas continued.
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Article URL : https://www.foxnews.com/sports/wnba-star-brittney-griner-stand-national-anthem-being-stripped-essential-american-freedoms