Around the clock, commercial radio station KOA 850 AM pumps out what can only be considered racist, sexist, elitist and xenophobic white male supremacist propaganda that directly and indirectly targets African Americans and other Americans of color, as well as progressive women from all walks of life. Nonetheless, commentary on the University of Colorado Buffaloes Football team, along with the NFL’s Denver Broncos, draws in a major slice of the listening audience on Saturdays and Sundays.
KOA is exploiting CU Boulder football coach Deion Sander’s Black Buffs: Black men unknowingly doing the heavy lifting, getting their hands dirty, and in the long run enriching filthy-rich white male aristocrats, who, along with the KKK, Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, support Trump’s efforts to return America to being a separate and unequal nation.
Black men naively helping “conservative,” if not 1861 “Confederate-minded,” white men rake in millions of dollars.
Tragically, pimping is easy.
Sanders most likely isn’t hip to some of the white supremacist shenanigans that are going on around him, but someone ought to tell him how his gridiron program is being exploited by Rocky Mountain good ol’ boys who publicly hold gutter-low opinions of Black folks and other racial minorities as well as independent-minded white women.
iHeartMedia’s flagship operation, KOA, along with sister station 630 KHOW, is home to an assortment of hosts and callers who belittle Black and brown people. We are the infinite source for all of white America’s societal ills and woes. However, there are virtually no liberal, progressive-minded people of color in their lineup who counter this narrative. No one to defend nor offer a different perspective, and that’s a crime against freedom and democracy, my friends.
Understand this: I’m one of the last to sit behind a KOA mic and articulate the popular opinions of Black and tan folks, and that was more than 20 years ago. This silence is not by happenstance, coincidence or pure chance. No, this quarter-long century void is strategic, deliberate and politically tactical. The tragedy is apparent to everyone, all you have to do is listen and you’ll discover KOA sounds like a 1962 White Citizens Council meeting.
Black men can toss a pass, run a power sweep and catch a deep bomb, yet we can’t comment on women’s rights, the economy, global issues or national politics: We are to be “seen but not heard.”
Just shut up and run, boy!
CU, the athletic program, the president’s office, the college newspaper and the Board of Regents are, willingly and knowingly, facilitating this highly exploitative relationship, allowing KOA to utilize Black athletes to further the anti-Black agenda of the Make America Great/White Again (MAGA) movement, which dominates the AM airwaves. Call it “Hate Radio” — I do and so do millions more, but local mainstream media outlets won’t.
Go figure?
Forgive me, but I can’t sit quietly and let that play out without stating the obvious: The voices coming out of iHeartMedia’s KOA and its affiliates are as insulting and belittling of Black and brown people as Trump’s cult can be. And on the flip-side, ownership — and more importantly their sponsorship base — won’t allow any contradicting and challenging voices on the AM airwaves.
This isn’t complicated at all. The only occasion in which Black men can perform on KOA is to run with
a ball.
Where’s The Denver Post, Westword and all the rest? If this isn’t an instance of exploiting people, then what is? How insulting and belittling can it get? Is this a case of “if you don’t say anything, neither will I?”
It’s so very quiet, you can hear a rat piss on cotton.
Why should young Black men, who the MAGA right brands as public enemy No. 1, thugs who’re always up to no good, underwrite their efforts? Now, if Deion isn’t instantly competitive, and isn’t automatically successful, despite the gridiron program being mired in mediocrity, Coach Prime will be a target for a public “lynching.” No different from the Bronco’s Russell Wilson was this year. The fanatical fans — who when not rooting for their favorite boys will be rooting for Lord Trump and Ron DeSantis — will want to remove the “uppity” Black males who don’t know their assigned inferior place.
Talk about a conflict of interest.
I’ve fired off a letter to the CU Athletic Director, Rick George. Let’s see what he does.
Desi Cortez is a resident of Aurora and longtime columnist.
This opinion does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.
