Just the facts! A lack of diversity in Minnesota sports

I hope you had a great Christmas. This time of year grips me like you cannot imagine. It’s a time of joy and reflection.

I have taken to social media at FitzBeatSr., my Twitter handle. No Facebook for me.

Again I had the suspicion that hatred is very much alive in our country while watching the movie Lincoln.  It was a powerful true story about our President Abraham Lincoln in 1865 making deals with Congress to secure the 13th Amendment while our country was fighting itself in the war of wars, the Civil War to free the slaves and end the Confederacy — and, yes, Lincoln was a Republican from the great state of Illinois.

Here we are now today faced with President Barack Obama. Congratulations! He was named the 2012 Time Magazine “Person of the Year.”

And Congress must come to agreement and act by December 31 or taxes will increase on 90 percent of Americans, and $109 billion will be cut from the federal budget in each of the next nine years. That, folks, is a potential economic shock known as the fiscal cliff.

Republicans are certainly not what they used to be, not with Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and many other Republicans who are losers. Yet they spill their untruths to the committee of followers, showing by their rhetoric that they are so far to the right they go around in circles.

We’ve seen locally the Star Tribune story last month highlighting the NBA Minnesota Timberwolves being virtually all White. And that the intent of management, also all White, is to market a team like the days of the great first Laker George Mikan. The MLB Twins, now with one Black player on their 40-man roster, follow the same formula.

There is also a virtual slap in the face locally by many radio and TV stations that simply refuse to diversify, which I mentioned on Twitter last week, including ESPN AM 1500 KSTP Radio, the flagship station for Twins baseball and men’s Gophers basketball.

Auditioning last week on KSTP Radio was the troubled Jeff Dubay, who used to work for my ex-employer KFAN; he is a convicted felon for cocaine. I called it “Crack Air.” Nothing that I stated in my tweet was inaccurate in my view. Dubay battles with his continuing recovery every day. I wish him only the best with his battle.

I don’t know the man and he certainly doesn’t know me. However, it did not stop him — before his problems of addiction and conviction — from making several nasty, false comments about my good name.

The point of my tweet was to point out and highlight that KSTP has no Black personalities and they are an all-sports station. And a Black man in Minnesota — many with no criminal record or drug history — can’t get an interview audition or much less get on the air.

You would have thought that I opened a hate-request line. For a number of short-sighted, knuckle-headed, biased, un-informed and racist tweets were targeted at me.

It’s sad that people like program director Dan Seeman, who’s in charge at KSTP and who I have history with from my KFAN days, can’t spell diversity.

What we’ve learned is that hatred is very much alive. We saw that in Connecticut with the horrific events surrounding the murders of 26 innocent people, many of them children. If we don’t stand for something we will fall for anything.

Larry Fitzgerald can be heard weekday mornings on KMOJ Radio 89.9 FM at 8:25 am, on WDGY-AM 740 Monday-Friday at 12:17 pm and 4:17 pm, and at www.Gamedaygold.com. He also commentates on sports 7-8 pm on Almanac (TPT channel 2). Follow him on Twitter at FitzBeatSr. Larry welcomes reader responses to info@larry-fitzgerald.com, or visit www.Larry-Fitzgerald.com.