Do the ‘I checked Allstate first’ commercials qualify as a hate crime?

Note: This column first appeared on Cashill’s substack.

If next year Allstate Insurance serves once more as the official sponsor of the College Football Playoff, I might have to give up college football. The company’s “Check First” series was that bad, bad as in annoying and offensive, yes sure, what else is new?But bad also, just maybe, as in illegal.

“I checked Allstate first and saved hundreds on my car insurance,” says the goofy young office worker. “Unfortunately, I didn’t check if doing the Georgia bark at my boss would be appropriate.” The scene then shifts to a conference table manned by sober young staffers of various races and sexes. At the head of the table sits the prim, grim girl-boss. The fellow points to her University of Georgia coffee mug and says, “Go, dawgs!”

“Yea,” says corporate Karen dismissively. The fellow, missing the cue, proceeds to do a full-blown Georgia bark followed by an eager “Sic’em.” Karen now looks at him as though he were the dawg’s poop on the bottom of her shoe. “Checking All State first was smart but barking at my boss was dumb,” concludes the crestfallen fellow, now known to his co-workers as “Bark Boy.”

The numbers at the Bark Boy conference table reflect standard TV commercial demographics: half male, half female; whites, blacks, and “others” in equal number. Based on these numbers, there is roughly a one in three chance that the buffoon in a given commercial would be white, and a one in six chance that the buffoon would be a white male.

Allstate’s ad agency, Wieden+Kennedy (WK Portland), had five such ads to cast. The other four in this series follow the same pattern: a young person checks All State and saves hundreds before making some cringe-worthy faux pas. One gets caught on a stadium cam swiping a chunk of cotton candy from a little boy. Another lets the Texas longhorn mascot loose while taking a selfie. Another shows up at a date’s house in Duke regalia unaware that the date’s family is hard core UNC. Another gets painted in KU blue but cannot get the paint off in time for graduation.

Other than “Bark Boy,” none of these commercials is offensive as a stand-alone. As a boxed set, however, they are an affront to the gods of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Yes, you guessed it. With five plum parts to assign, WK Portland gave all five career-making parts to white men.

Let us do the math here. Were there only two ads, the odds that the buffoon role in both would go to a while male are 1 in 36. With five ads, the odds mount quickly: 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6. You can write off 1 in 36 odds to chance, but with 1 in 7776 odds, you are looking at a EEOC violation at best and, at worst, a hate crime.

Based on WK’s corporate culture, I am going to argue for hate crime, with the EEOC violation being a necessary byproduct. The evidence is circumstantial but compelling. In October 2016 WK Portland showed its colors by parking a food truck decorated to resemble Trump Tower in downtown Portland . “There’s a new food truck in town,” the firm tweeted. “It’s specialty: BS.”

No matter what customers ordered, they got the same thing. “We’ve debunked some of Donald Trump’s remarks on eight custom designed sandwich wrappers, across five different types of–you guessed it–baloney sandwiches,” WK boasted. The agency is pure Portland. The WK website features any number of irksome ad campaigns designed, it would seem, for no greater purpose than to wake the un-woke.

For Allstate to hire such a firm was Bud Light-level stupid. During the playoffs, roughly 2/3 of the viewers were male and, given college allegiances, more white than usual, more Trump voters than not. As WK did in 2016, its “creatives” chose to stick their rainbow thumb in the MAGA eye, client’s interests be damned.

The Bravehearts at WK could get away with this affront knowing that white males lack the racial solidarity and media support to fight back. Imagine, however, what would have happened if each of the five buffoons were black. BLM would have burned WK’s damn building down along with the rest of Portland, Allstate would have to put Jasmine Crockett on its corporate board, trial lawyers would have crawled out of the woodwork, and MAGA America would have had one well-deserved laugh.

Never apologize, Bark Boy!

My newest book, “Empire of Lies,” is now available in ebook and print versions at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Note: This column first appeared on Cashill’s substack. Please subscribe.