African-American WNBA and Russian basketball star Brittney Griner is being held without bail in Russia for alleged possession of a small amount of hashish oil. Whatever the circumstances, and however her detention might be being used by Russia (or the U.S.), Brittney Griner must be released. But operatives of this system who howl in self-righteous outrage at the detention without bail of a Black person for alleged drug possession anywhere in the world are world-class hypocrites.
At the top of the list is Hillary Clinton, who had the gall to tweet, “Free Brittney.” Hillary Clinton is a longtime and high-powered political representative of this system that arrests a million people each year for drug possession, vastly disproportionately people of color, even as it deprives millions of any way to survive and drives them into drug use and the drug trade. Jails around the country are packed with Black, Brown and Native American people who cannot make bail in these cases. Tens of thousands end up in prison for drug possession. In 1996, as a powerful figure in Bill Clinton’s presidency, Hillary Clinton played a key role in escalating the so-called “war on drugs,” demanding “100,000 more police” and infamously channeling the language of a lynch mob in calling for “bringing to heel” Black youths who she demonized as “super predators.”
The Democratic Party is a party of piggery. It is a party led by a president who acted like a jack-in-the-box in his State of the Union address, gleefully repeating over and over, “Fund the police! Fund the police! Fund the police!”
So, Hillary and all the rest of you pig-loving, prison-stuffing Democratic politicians… just shut up. Nobody on Earth has less right to condemn anyone for unjustly jailing an African-American for drug possession.
