The Brittney Griner Trade Was No Win for Black People

Freedom for a man linked to untold black death is not a victory

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The Brittney Griner Trade Was No Win for Black People

Freedom for a man linked to untold black death is not a victory

Connie Morgan

When you’re on a different continent it can be hard to keep up with American news. For the most part I did not when I was in South Africa this past December. However, there was one story I couldn’t help but pay attention to: Brittney Griner was brought home from Russia. Griner is a black, gay WNBA player who was imprisoned in Russia for possession of less than a gram of cannabis oil. While this is technically a crime in Russia, she was undoubtedly being used for leverage against the United States government. It is the duty of the U.S. government to get its citizens home but prisoner trades must be carefully weighed and measured. What the U.S. lost in the trade for Griner was the notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was being held in a penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, until he was returned to Russia on December 8.

I had the incredible opportunity to travel to South Africa on a mission trip exploring the Africa/Israel connection. The trip was about making connections. Connections between the African continent and Israel. Connections between the black American struggle and that of indigenous Africans. Connections between Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. Connections between Jewish entrepreneurship and African entrepreneurship. Connections (or a lack thereof) between South African apartheid and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One of the most surprising connections was that of Viktor Bout and South Africa. It is serendipitous that while I was in South Africa the name of a Russian arms dealer with a connection to that country was suddenly all over the American news.

The trade of Viktor Bout for Brittney Griner was touted as a win for black people by many public black voices. Without even mentioning Bout’s name, Ebony Magazine hailed the trade as “a victory for Black folks and the LGBTQ+ community.” Another piece demanded that we stop debating whether the trade was good or not and accept it as “a win for Black women.” Yet another piece harped at black men for not “showing up” for Griner. 

Let’s assume “black win” means justice served in favor of black people. In this instance, how can we know justice has been served if we know nothing about Bout? Does the freeing of a black American automatically equate to justice for black people globally? We must examine Bout up close and see what we lost in return for Griner. Only then can we know if this was a win for black people.

When I began looking into the Bout-Griner trade, I noticed that a few articles had one brief line acknowledging Bout’s arms deals in Africa. A Russian warlord dealing with Africans sounds like the making of a Leo DiCaprio film. (And in fact, a movie starring Nicolas Cage is loosely based on Viktor Bout’s life.) However, despite the setup for a fascinating story, Bout’s African ties weren’t being discussed in any depth in most mainstream venues. 

Viktor Bout isn’t your run-of-the-mill arms dealer; he was prolific. Bout is linked to more black misery than perhaps any other living person. From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, wherever there was kinetic conflict in Africa, you can guarantee Bout was not far away. Bout is connected to countless destroyed African lives. He was involved in the following conflicts:

• Sierra Leone Civil War (1991 - 2002) 

  • 50,000 dead and millions displaced. 

  • Bout armed soldiers on all sides of the conflict.

• First and Second Liberian Civil War (1989 - 1996, 1999 - 2003) 

  • An estimated 250,000 killed across two civil wars and one million displaced.

  • Bout delivered missiles, machine guns and military helicopters to the warzone.

  • Bout is accused of collaborating with former Liberian president Charles Taylor who used diamonds to purchase supplies from Bout.

• The First and Second Congo War (1996 - 2003) (also called The Great War of Africa or Africa’s World War)

  • Estimates put the number of civilians killed in the war at 5.4 million, principally from disease and starvation. 

  • Bout smuggled cobalt out of Congo while simultaneously supplying weapons to various rebel factions.

• The Angolan Civil War (1975 - 2002) 

  • More than 500,000 people had died by the end of the war and over a million were displaced.

  • Thousands of civilians were killed and injured by weapons supplied by Bout, who trafficked to rebels.  

Of course Bout isn’t all to blame for these wars. The African people and their corrupt leadership must take responsibility as well. One can’t blame every war-related death in Africa on Bout but one can argue that the continent would be a far less bloody place if Bout had never set foot there.

The bloodshed and corruption that followed Bout wherever he went led to him being seen as the world’s most notorious arms dealer. As reported by 60 Minutes a couple years after he was arrested in 2008: “rarely does the U.S. government want anyone more than they wanted Viktor Bout.”

Douglas Farah, co-author of a book about Bout titled "The Merchant of Death" says of Bout:

As someone told me in the book, he was the ultimate mailman and you never shoot the mailman. There were very few other people who could deliver what he could deliver, across the African continent particularly…

Bout wasn’t necessarily driven by racism, ideology, or any deep philosophy. Dealing weaponry was simply lucrative. For someone who relies on war to make their fortunes, peace is the enemy. A developing continent like Africa—with over 3,000 tribes, 2,000 languages, competing belief systems, and endless natural resources to quarrel over—is a tinder box for conflict. Bout recognized that someone needed to help keep the fire going. He was happy to be that someone. Bout brought assembly-line efficiency to African conflict.

Bout’s transition to arming whoever was willing to pay was natural, because he had been working in Africa as an intelligence officer and military translator when the Soviet Union collapsed. Bout moved to South Africa in 1997. When the U.S. government tried to gain access to Bout with the help of the South African government, government officials claimed there was not enough evidence against him to turn him over. 

Bout was finally apprehended by U.S. authorities in 2008 in Thailand in the course of an elaborate sting. He was fooled into thinking he was meeting with Colombian rebels to discuss a weapons deal. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2011. 

Bout was never charged for arms trafficking in Africa. Have you heard a peep from so-called black leadership about that injustice?

The superficial observer says, “a black woman is being freed, this must be good for black people.” However, anyone who understands the extent to which the U.S. government has been a purveyor of systemic racism will wait to learn the facts before celebrating. When one notices that the mainstream narrative about the “black victory” of the Bout-Griner trade has little to say about Bout’s African malfeasance, one should be suspicious at best. When the administration of Joe “you ain’t black” Biden declares someone a black role model, as White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did, alarm bells should go off:

On a personal note, Brittney is more than an athlete, more than an Olympian. She is an important role model and inspiration to millions of Americans, particularly the LGBTQI+ Americans and women of color. She should never have been detained by Russia. And we are—I am—deeply proud of the work that the President has done, this administration has done to get her home.

Statements such as this suggest that the Bout-Briner trade was largely a matter of identity politics. There are numerous other Americans being held overseas, in Russia and elsewhere, including many straight white men, who will never benefit from the attentions of the Biden administration, for obvious reasons.

When you become as politically jaded as I am, you’re not surprised to learn we traded away a man linked to more black death than just about anyone else for a black woman few had heard of until ten minutes ago, largely because she was an identity-politics cause célèbre. Actual justice for black people doesn’t matter to the powers that be, but perceived political wins certainly do. Politicians and the press don't expect black folks to do our own research. They expect us to clap like seals when they tout a “black win.” Unfortunately, in the case of the Bout-Griner trade, their expectation appears to have largely been fulfilled.

Viktor Bout’s legacy is dominated by black suffering: rape, displacement, murder, child soldiers, civil war, land destruction, broken families, and the pillaging of natural resources. A win for black people was Viktor Bout’s imprisonment. Brittney Griner’s release helped one black person. Bout’s imprisonment gave his countless victims some semblance of justice. His release means black victims of enduring trauma have been told once again that justice isn’t for them.

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Connie Morgan is a Christian, wife, mother, and UX Researcher located in the Pacific Northwest. She has a background in economics and public relations and has worked in higher ed and marketing. She served five years in the United States military as a military intelligence officer. She is a founder of Free Black Thought. Her main research and writing interests are the family, education, and personal liberty generally. She has written for the Journal of Free Black Thought about education, home schooling, and other issues. Follow her on Twitter and subscribe to her new Substack.