1,200 Black women press Biden to ‘make a deal’ to bring Brittney Griner home

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July 7, 2022

By Zachary Schermele, NBC News

The group said the WNBA star is “being used as a political pawn” and the Biden administration’s actions are not matching its rhetoric to return her to the U.S.

WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner had hearing in Khimki, Russia, on June 27 (Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP via Getty Images file)

Nearly 1,200 Black women urged President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to “make a deal” with Russia to “immediately” bring home WNBA star Brittney Griner in a letter delivered to the White House on Tuesday.

The letter, dated July 4, was signed by many prominent Black women described in the letter as intersectional and intergenerational. The group includes civil rights and faith leaders, athletes and business executives.

Among the letter’s signatories are Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., three state senators and former NAACP president Hazel Dukes. (Joy Reid and Tiffany Cross, both MSNBC hosts, and Amber Ruffin, a Peacock host, also signed the letter.)

The group chastises the Biden administration for not acting quickly enough to negotiate the release of Griner, who was detained in February. Russian authorities said she was in possession of cannabis-derived vape cartridges and charged her with drug smuggling.

Learn more about Griner’s detainment in Russia.

Back home, many believe the failed war on drugs is really a war on Blacks.

More breaking news here.

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