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Oklahoma City was left stunned and is in a bit of a panic after the departure of free agent and?Thunder?star Kevin Durant to the Golden State Warriors, longtime mayor Mick Cornett told ESPN Radios Capital Games podcast.Were stunned, said Cornett, who has been the mayor of Oklahoma City since 2004 and is a former sports reporter in the city. We had no history. Kevin was our Ernie Banks and Michael Jordan. Hes the history. ... Weve been spurned by someone we cared deeply about. Thats the emotional aspect of it.Durant, the 2007 national player of the year after one season at Texas, was selected No. 2 overall in the 2007 NBA draft by the Seattle SuperSonics, who then moved to Oklahoma City in 2008.Durant was the NBA Rookie of the Year and went on to be NBA MVP in 2014. He also was a seven-time All-Star selection, Olympic gold medalist (2012) and led the Thunder to the NBA Finals in 2012.In 2013, he donated $1 million to the American Red Cross after a devastating tornado in Moore, Oklahoma.On Monday, Durant announced he was leaving for the Golden State Warriors, who erased a 3-1 deficit to beat the Thunder in the Western Conference finals. Durant, a free agent, reportedly will sign a two-year, $54.3 million deal with a player option after the first season.[Durant] took on being an almost incredible figure in the city, Cornett said. If you said youre from Oklahoma City, theyre likely to say Kevin Durant or theyre likely to say OKC Thunder. He put us on the map. Its not all him -- (owner) Clay Bennett and (GM) Sam Presti have orchestrated an incredible franchise here -- but he was the face of the franchise both here locally and worldwide.Cornett said it was hard to put into numbers the financial impact that Durant had on the city.He meant so much in ways its impossible to quantify, Cornett said. If you were a CEO in OKC and you were hiring from the East or West Coast 10 years ago, you might have said Oklahoma City isnt culturally relevant.But Kevin is a part of the success story for OKC. Kevin was a part of the renaissance. This city has come so far, so fast -- probably further, faster than any city in American history. Kevin was right there along with us. Theres a slight sense of panic.Cornett heaped praise on Durant, but he did say the perception of the superstar has been tainted in the city.His image has changed drastically than it was last week because of his decision to join a team of superstars in the NBA, Cornett said. You cant get that back. From the basketball side of it, I dont believe Kevin is going to have the impact on the Warriors that he did on the Thunder. The Thunder could have won next years championship. But I never got the sense -- and I cant imagine he fooled us for nine years -- that he wanted to leave Oklahoma City.Cornett made an impassioned plea for fellow All-Star Russell Westbrook to stay. Westbrook can be a free agent in 2017.If the Thunder build a team around Russell Westbrook, they could easily do so, Cornett said. But Russell has to buy into that. I dont know if Russell is interested in being the figurehead of the franchise. If Russell were to choose to stay in Oklahoma City -- and in the wake of Kevins departure -- he would be a larger icon than ever before.Cornett is confident the Thunder can rebound without Durant.I really do put a lot of trust in Clay Bennett and Sam Presti, Cornett said. They want to be good every year and for the long term. 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Napoli staged a second-half comeback from two goals down after Gervinhos opener and a stunning strike from Kevin Strootman.SAN FRANCISCO -- The oldest Latino civil rights group in the United States opens every meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance, a tradition resulting from a long fight to prove Hispanics belong in this country.In the San Francisco Bay Area, a white father of two says he would never require his young daughters to recite the pledge to show their patriotism.And in North Dakota, Native American protesters whose ancestors were here long before there was a United States waved American flags as they fought a proposed pipeline near sacred tribal land. Some demonstrators flew the flag upside down as a distress symbol.San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernicks refusal to stand during The Star-Spangled Banner in protest against racial oppression and police brutality has brought to light deep and sometimes surprising differences in the way Americans view the flag, the national anthem and the pledge.The symbols, people say, inspire skepticism and heartbreak, pride and joy, sometimes all at once in the same person. Some minorities, in particular, have conflicted feelings about symbols honoring a country that has not always treated all people equally.The flag is important to us because we have so many relatives in the military, said Justin Poor Bear, a 38-year-old member of the Oglala Lakota tribe from Allen, South Dakota. There is also a lot of pain.Following Kaepernicks example, pro athletes and high school students across the country are taking a knee or linking arms during the national anthem before sporting events.The protests have raised questions of who gets to be called a patriot.Jason Pontius, a 46-year-old white resident of Alameda, California, said the U.S. of all countries should realize that blind devotion is not the American way. Sometimes when he drops off his second-grader at school, he sticks around while she recites the Pledge of Allegiance with her class. But he doesnt join in.What makes America great, he said, is that people have always challenged the idea of what America stands for.Yet there are organizations that embrace the flag precisely as a way to declare that their members, too, are Americans.The League of United Latin American Citizens -- the nations oldest Latino civil rights group, founded in Texas by World War I veterans -- has historically opened all its meetings with the pledge and a prayer similar to one George Washington is said to have recited.Dennis W. Montoya, the leagues state director in New Mexico, said the groups emphasis on American pride is connected with a long fight by Latinos to prove they belong in this country.If someone doesnt stand for the pledge at one of our meetings, that person will probably be kicked out, Montoya said. Its disrespecting LULACs rituals and traditions.African-Americans have been moveed to create symbols that better reflect their history.dddddddddddd.The national anthem, for example, was written by a slave owner and contains a painful reference to slavery in its little-known third stanza. The NAACP dubbed Lift Evry Voice and Sing the black national anthem in 1919.The hymn is a staple of African American singers and is so important that the clergy member who gave the benediction at President Barack Obamas 2009 inauguration opened with lines from the song.After Kaepernick started his protest in August, C.C. Washington of Waco, Texas, read all the stanzas of The Star-Spangled Banner, including the one that refers derisively to slaves who fought for the British in exchange for their freedom.The 65-year-old African-American retiree -- fresh off visiting the Statue of Liberty last week -- felt betrayed.All this time, Ive been posting on Facebook: Respect our flag, respect our national anthem. Now its totally different, she said, choking up. Ill stand out of respect for the people standing next to me, not because I believe it.Poor Bear said he started looking at the anthem differently after he took a group of Oglala Lakota students to a minor-league hockey game last year. A man yelled slurs and sprayed the children with beer, incensed that one of them did not stand for the national anthem, Poor Bear said. The student had been putting batteries into a camera.So I still stand for the national anthem, Poor Bear said. But I no longer put my hand over my heart.Linda Tamura, a retired professor of education in Portland, Oregon, has no personal objections to the anthem or the flag, even though her family was among tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans put in internment camps by the U.S. government during World War II.Her father volunteered for the military, along with her uncle and other Japanese-American men who felt it was their duty. When she looks at the Stars and Stripes, she says, she feels pride, instilled in part by her parents, who more than anything wanted us to believe in our country.At the same time, she salutes the growing protest movement and hopes it triggers broader discussions about how to improve relations.Thats why my father was in the military. Thats why were part of America. Thats why we believe in America, she said. Because we have the right to say what we believe.---Contreras reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico. AP staff writer Deepti Hajela and stringer Rachelle Blidner contributed to this story from New York. Staff writers Errin Haines Whack contributed from Philadelphia; Jesse J. Holland and Noreen Nasir from Washington.---Follow Janie Har on Twitter at www.twitter.com/byjaniehar ' ' '