Bob Costas offers a powerful look at the debate over kneeling football players.
It's more than just the military.
Sportscaster Bob Costas appeared on CNN over the weekend to talk about NFL players kneeling during the national anthem — and provided an important perspective on patriotism while he was at it.
It's been more than a year since former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick quietly sat out the national anthem before a pre-season game to protest police violence in America. On Sunday, dozens of players around the league followed in his footsteps after President Donald Trump demanded players stand during the anthem.
In a brilliant segment on CNN, Costas contextualized the protests, asking us all to take a step back and ask ourselves a few fundamental questions about what it means to be a patriot.
How did we get to this place where professional sports have become so linked to patriotism and the military, anyway?
"Patriotism and the flag have been conflated," Costas explained.
GIFs via CNN.
"If you go to see 'Hamilton,' which is about the founding of the republic, no one says, 'Wait a minute! Don’t raise the curtain until we hear the national anthem.' When you went to see '[Saving] Private Ryan,' no one said, 'Turn off the projector until we’ve had the national anthem,'" Costas said. "It’s in sports where this stuff happens — sometimes movingly, sometimes, I’d submit, cynically."
The story of how sports became synonymous with patriotism has roots in wartime support for soldiers but also in "paid patriotism." A 2015 report commissioned by the offices of Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake (both R-Arizona) found that the Department of Defense had spent millions of dollars in recent years paying pro sports leagues to hold "patriotic" events. Until 2009, NFL players weren't even required to be on the sidelines during the anthem, much less stand at attention as it played.
Members of the New England Patriots kneel during the national anthem before their Sept. 24, 2017 game. Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images.
As Costas suggested, if patriotism only means showing blind fealty to the flag and military, that's easy. Much more difficult is recognizing that patriotism can take many other forms.
"Because wrapping yourself in the flag and honoring the military is something which nobody is going to object to," he said. "We all respect their sacrifice. We all honor their sacrifice, and yet what it has come to mean, is that the flag is primarily and only about the military."
Patriotism can be expressed in a lot of different ways, Costas emphasized — and those forms of patriotism don't always relate to the flag or the military.
"Martin Luther King was a patriot, Susan B. Anthony was a patriot, dissidents are patriots, school teachers and social workers are patriots," he explained.
Patriotism means fighting for a better country and living up to the ideals that the flag and the anthem are supposed to represent.
The flag and the anthem are symbols. It's the ideals behind them that matter.
"People cannot see that in his own way, Colin Kaepernick, however imperfectly, is doing a patriotic thing," Costas said.
Colin Kaepernick (right) and Eric Reid kneel before the 49ers' Sept. 12, 2016, game. Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images.
Back in 2016, after Kaepernick first sat out the anthem (he sat for one game but switched to taking a knee as a way to show respect for the flag and the military, as ironic in the current context as it may be), he explained why he was protesting. His explanation fits perfectly with Costas's definition of patriotism.
"When there’s significant change and I feel like that flag represents what it’s supposed to represent, this country is representing people the way that it’s supposed to, I’ll stand," Kaepernick said at the time. "There’s a lot of things that need to change. One specifically? Police brutality. There’s people being murdered unjustly and not being held accountable. People are being given paid leave for killing people. That’s not right. That’s not right by anyone’s standards."
Those are the patriots we need in this country, now more than ever. The ones unwilling to simply accept the status quo, but to fight for American ideals.
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There's a reason why some people can perfectly copy accents, and others can't
Turns out, there's a neurodivergent link.
A woman in black long sleeve shirt stands in front of mirror.
Have you ever had that friend who goes on vacation for four days to London and comes back with a full-on Queen's English posh accent? "Oooh I left my brolly in the loo," they say, and you respond, "But you're from Colorado!" Well, there are reasons they (and many of us) do that, and usually it's on a pretty subconscious level.
It's called "accent mirroring," and it's actually quite common with people who are neurodivergent, particularly those with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). According Neurolaunch, the self-described "Free Mental Health Library," "Accent mirroring, also known as accent adaptation or phonetic convergence, is the tendency to unconsciously adopt the accent or speech patterns of those around us. This linguistic chameleon effect is not unique to individuals with ADHD, but it appears to be more pronounced and frequent in this population."
Essentially, when people have conversations, we're constantly "scanning" for information—not just the words we're absorbing, but the inflection and tone. "When we hear an accent, our brains automatically analyze and categorize the phonetic features, prosody, and intonation patterns," writes Neurolaunch. For most, this does result in copying the accent of the person with whom we're speaking. But those with ADHD might be more sensitive to auditory cues. This, "coupled with a reduced ability to filter out or inhibit the impulse to mimic…could potentially explain the increased tendency for accent mirroring."
While the article explains further research is needed, they distinctly state that, "Accent mirroring in individuals with ADHD often manifests as an unconscious mimicry of accents in social situations. This can range from subtle shifts in pronunciation to more noticeable changes in intonation and speech rhythm. For example, a person with ADHD might find themselves unconsciously adopting a Southern drawl when conversing with someone from Texas, even if they’ve never lived in the South themselves."
People are having their say online. On the subreddit r/ADHDWomen, a thread began: "Taking on accents is an ADHD thing?" The OP shares, "My whole life, I've picked up accents. I, myself, never noticed, but everyone around me would be like, 'Why are you talking like that??' It could be after I watched a show or movie with an accent or after I've traveled somewhere with a different accent than my 'normal.'
They continue, "Apparently, I pick it up fast, but it fades out slowly. Today... I'm scrolling Instagram, I watch a reel from a comedian couple (Darcy and Jeremy. IYKYK) about how Darcy (ADHD) picks up accents everywhere they go. It's called ADHD Mirroring??? And it's another way of masking."
(The OP is referring to Darcy Michaels and his husband Jeremy Baer, who are both touring comedians based in Canada.)
Hundreds of people on the Reddit thread alone seem to relate. One comments, "Omfg I've done this my whole life; I'll even pick up on the pauses/spaces when I'm talking to someone who is ESL—but English is my first language lol."
Sometimes, it can be a real issue for those around the chameleon. "I accidentally mimicked a waitress's weird laugh one time. As soon as she was out of earshot, my family started to reprimand me, but I was already like 'oh my god I don’t know why I did that, I feel so bad.'"
Many commenters on TikTok were shocked to find out this can be a sign of ADHD. One jokes, "Omg, yes, at a store the cashier was talking to me and she was French. She's like 'Oh are you French too? No, I'm not lol. I'm very east coast Canada."
And some people just embrace it and make it work for them. "I mirror their words or phrase! I’m 30. I realized I start calling everyone sweetie cause my manager does & I work at coffee shop."