If this sounds familiar it’s because CNN host W. Kamau Bell said it first on Sunday.

Via Daily Bruin:

A photo of Michael Phelps adorned my 14th birthday cake. My middle school email password was the infamous swimmer’s name. Following the 2004 Athens Olympics, I took up swim classes.

I was a big fan of Michael Phelps.

Like any kid who positions him or herself in front of NBC for two weeks every four years, I was profoundly inspired by the Olympics. Particularly by Phelps. Not because he was relatable or in any way similar to me, but because he was a modern-day, real-life superhero.

That was in 2004. This is 2016.

The world is a very different place to what it was 12 years ago, and Phelps has a very different place within it. As such, when choosing its flag bearer I think Team USA missed a great opportunity: Ibtihaj Muhammad.

Muhammad is in Rio preparing to be the first-ever American Olympian to compete while wearing a hijab. In the run-up to the Olympics, Muhammad had to endure not only the grueling training that all Olympians go through but also the xenophobic and racist insults Muslims in the U.S. have been subjected to while Donald Trump has run for President.

Personally, I think that kind of perseverance deserves to be rewarded. Not that Phelps hasn’t survived his own adversity, but I think we can all agree that was mostly self-made.

The Olympics are based around national pride and in a dangerously nationalistic pride of a different variety, I think it would have been momentous to honor Muhammad not just as an American, not just as an athlete, but as a symbol of everything the U.S. claims to be.