We Should Never Give Up the Quest for Setting Brittney Free Brittney Grinder. WNBA superstar. Sits in a Russian lockup far from where she displays her hoops wizardry on the court with the Phoenix Mercury, and to her predicament her coach says “If this was LeBron James he’d be home, right?” to which I say “Not likely,” not with all that’s going on in these moments in time, a war of a kind, between two arch enemies, the US and the former USSR, known for always wanting to “one up” each other in some way and Russia with a “brotha” in jail for possession of hashish oil, an action not according to Hoyle in their society, has quite a hand to play. But I hear what Coach is trying to say. Loudly. As she’s speaking to the glaring disparities in salary and prestige and commercial opportunities that exist between men and women professional athletes, and, indeed, that gap needs to narrow in size but right now we have to focus our eyes on seeing that BG is set free, in the main way we can by keeping the pressure on the president and the State Department to make her return home a top priority, while, at the same time, keeping her spirit alive, celebrating her anti-bullying activism and how she’s defended LGBTQ human beings’ rights and dignity and supporting what she and other players in the WNBA have been doing in the way of social justice advocacy in a country that has fought against such eternally. She’s a remarkable woman needed by us and we should Never give up the quest to set her free.