Brittney Griner’s Truth & Importance for Black Girl Ballers

By Blair Smith

“Know and remember that Black girls are always present despite efforts to disappear, displace, and rearrange us…” – Saving Our Lives Hear Our Truths (SOLHOT)

Black girls are on my mind and heart, heavy. Recently, I have been thinking a lot about Black girls who play sports, particularly basketball. At one point in my youth, the game of basketball was everything to me. It’s what I did during the school year, during the summer, in my backyard and on the blacktops with my father (R.I.P.) and homies. In middle school, you couldn’t walk in my room and not find a Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes or a local women’s college basketball poster on my wall. On the floor, somewhere in my room, sat my official WNBA basketball and my Sheryl Swoopes kicks that I wore for games, only. Like all my homegirls who played ball, when Love and Basketball came out on film, it was the best movie ever created. Black women and girl basketball players were everything to me because I could see my teammates and myself in them. I could also feel that they knew, firsthand, what we were up against us as Black girl ball players.

After my father passed on the first day of my sophomore year in high school, my relationship with basketball took a sharp turn. I didn’t see basketball as something that would be a part of the rest of my life, especially as a player. For one, basketball had been a huge part of my Black girl father-daughter relationship. An even bigger factor was that I had begun to date my best friend and teammate with verbally homophobic Black male coaches and teachers at school that preached 24/7 for us “to be ladies.” It would be the end of the world if we got caught being “nappy-headed hoes and jiggaboos” (know and remember the all Black Rutgers University championship basketball team and the latter quote that was used to devalue them by Don Imus in 2007). Lesbian, gay and anything associated with those terms were discouraged. Like Brittney Griner, my Black girl teammates and I received daily attacks of sexism and racism, particularly for our complex sexualities (desire and performance). My mother, out of love and concern, wanted me to quit the team, but something kept me going. At the time, I thought this desire to play was due to the lost of my father and not wanting to feel like I gave up on him. That was a part of it but it was deeper than that.

For some time, I carried resentment towards basketball in general due to racist, sexist and homophobic experiences. While carrying that resentment, I forgot about the wonderful experiences and transformative growth that came out of my experiences with basketball. Most of these experiences and growth would not be the same without the Black girls and women in my life, particularly in my world of basketball.

In particular, Griner’s resistance motivated me to know and remember the radical act of Black girls loving Black girls. A radical love that surpasses sexual desire. Love that gets through a whole basketball season dealing with racism and sexism, not only from coaches and in school but also at other schools where we played games. Attending a mid-southern inner city public high school located in the capital of the confederacy, my teammates and I were constantly hit with individual and systemic acts of racism, sexism and classism. I distinctly remember playing a school outside of city lines, where parents from the other team mentioned that we were unruly, ghetto and loud. Not to mention, no county school wanted to play at our school due to assumptions about city schools occupied by Black youth.

We kept it moving, though. We kept playing. We kept supporting each other. We resisted through love. I know and remember the time when I was crying my eyes out after my father passed and instead of asking questions a teammate held my hand and cried with me regardless of the assumptions that would come with this act of love. I know and remember the time we played at a school outside of city lines and we nearly went toe to toe with girls from the other team who claimed we were dumb and couldn’t pass state standardized tests. I know and remember giving and receiving rides home from teammates after late practices because the city cut funds for extracurricular transportation. I know and remember Black girl love, a love that could endure any storm.

After learning more about Brittany Griner’s recent explicit transparency and resilient take on her sexuality and sexual performance, I caught myself. I caught myself questioning and not understanding what her true impact is and will continue to be for Black girls who play ball because I’ve been so out of the loop, recently. Griner’s attention and the Crunk Feminist Collective (CFC) piece that brilliantly asserts why we should all love her inspired me to reflect on the amazingly resilient black women and girls, queer and non-gender conforming, in my life as a young ball player. When I reflected on Griner’s impact, I realized that Black girls who play basketball are gender-nonconforming simply by playing a male dominated sport. CFC’s “Love and Basketball: 5 Reasons You Should Be A Brittany Griner Fan” brought up great points but the one that stuck with me the most was, “ 3. She is a badass black girl role model.” This point hit home and I started think deeper about Black girl experiences with basketball.

Griner’s transparency and resiliency about her sexuality is very particular and important as a Black, queer female athlete in this particular world; where anything Black and queer and female is often hated and hypersexualized. Black girls are constantly regulated and told what to do with their bodies. I started to think about the tools that my teammates and utilized for our emotional health to resist daily assaults of racism and sexism. Griner’s presence and fearlessness about her sexuality and gender performance is important and is especially special for Black girl basketball players and their supporters.

Here are a few (of many) reasons why Brittany Griner’s resilience is especially important to the lived and material experiences of Black girls who play basketball:

1. Black female basketball players throughout history have been resistant to homophobia, racism and sexism in a variety of ways. Griner’s resistance is special because she has been speaking her truth before the start of her career. She has made strides about being silenced by college coaches about her sexuality. Black girls who play ball are often silenced, especially in regards to sexuality. I’ve had particular experiences with this silencing. As a Black queer gender-non-conforming girl, Griner has provided Black girls, teammates and supporters with tools to understand and respect what Black girls choose to do with their bodies, with particular attention to how racism and sexism affect their journey.

2. Griner is also committed to speaking and working with LGBTQ youth, specifically LGBTQ youth of color who are marginalized within the margins. Most recently, Griner spoke in front of youth at the GLAAD awards, sporting a bad white suit, encouraging youth to be who they are in their own time. She has found a way to stay true to herself while realizing a greater obligation to resist racism and sexism (homophobia) and support LGBTQ youth.

3. Griner is also fearless about her gender performance. She wears and models male clothing and could care less what we think. As a Black woman, like many Black girls who are masculine of center, gender performance puts us at risk of being criminalized. Griner has created another way to open up conversations about the experiences of masculine of center Black girls and women.

4. As Black girls, we have acquired ways to resist everyday and institutional attacks on our lives. Griner and her teammates have resisted devaluation in very bold and telling ways — tools that Black girls can use in their everyday lives. In an interview, Griner and her former college teammates reject comparisons to men’s basketball demanding that women’s basketball be respected by itself, without contrast. As girl basketball players, especially Black girls, we are often compared to our male counterparts, when the things we have to endure as women playing a male-dominated sport in an institutionally racist and sexist society lends no comparison.

I am forever thankful to Black girls who play sports. Your will to keep on in this particular world of ours will never be unknown or forgotten, especially not on my watch.

“We want you to know and remember that you do not know us, how you think you know us. We are not your fabrications.” – Saving Our Lives Hear Our Truth

Blair Smith is a doctoral student in the School of Education at Syracuse University interested in transforming the experiences of schooling for Black girls with particular focus on intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality.