The war on drugs has taken an ominous toll.
I have been incredibly worried about the direction our country is headed. I see striking similarities with where we are now as a country and pre World War II Germany. Nationalism is being conflated with patriotism, rights are being repressed, and there is a fierce divide along class, color, and creed. Brittney Griner, the women’s basketball player who has been detained in Russia for a very long time for apparently possessing marijuana vape cartridges, has become the most recent touchstone for the divide in this country.
While this is distressing enough, what I find just as distressing is the reaction of so many people on social media. I have been surprised, and then surprised that I am surprised. Comments abound that demonize her and say she deserves it. She knew better, they posit, so she deserves what’s coming to her.
I have noticed that some of the reasons she supposedly ‘deserves’ it is because she knelt during the national anthem. Ah. So, there it is. She calls out police brutality. She’s a married gay woman. She’s black. She makes good money (the disparity between her pay and male NBA stars is a subject for another day). In other words, she is everything that white Christian conservatives (WCC) hate.
White Christian conservatives love guns, though, and are willing to resurrect the war on drugs as a diversionary tactic so they might continue their gun fetish shamelessly. Brittney Griner is caught in that crossfire. Pun is intended.
Instead of gun reform, the real problem is drugs apparently. The war on drugs has raged on since at least Reagan’s ‘Just Say No’ phase of our country’s trajectory. However, multiple states have now legalized marijuana in one way or another, and yet the war on drugs is being ramped up again by right wing pundits like Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson. And further, Russia is helping to stoke the domestic controversy about legalization of drugs, and WCC are playing into that well. If you don’t believe me, read the comments on any article I posted. It’s sickening.
In this way, the war on drugs is serving as a shield for the gun lobby. It is the rocks that the movie hero throws to distract the villain so they can sneak past.
This is not about marijuana and its safety. Don’t be fooled. It is to divert from what everyone knows the real problem is — easy access to guns, and a culture that fetishizes firearms. The second amendment has been so perverted and exploited by the NRA and other pro-gun groups that they are willing to consider absolutely anything else before even thinking about one modicum of control or compromise. She is the most convenient target as the focus moves to drugs instead of guns.
Brittney Griner is being sacrificed, in part, for the sake of our love of guns — and it’s easy for many to do so, because she is everything their little WCC hearts hate. The outsized lust for guns seems to take place along party lines, mostly, so everything is conflated together.
Yep, she was an idiot to take drugs into Russia, even accidentally. No, she doesn’t deserve this. I hope she is released soon, and that we never send another person to Russia.
