Allstate Blasted Over Tone-Deaf Message About “Accepting People’s Differences” Ahead Of Sugar Bowl: “Sounding Like A Terrorist Apologist”

Aaron Ryan·
CULTURE
·
Allstate CEO
Allstate

Read the room, guy.

There’s been an outpouring of love and support for the people of New Orleans after the devastating terrorist attack on New Year’s Day when 42-year old Shamsud Din Jabbar drove a pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street before getting out and opening fire on officers.

The suspect, who had an ISIS flag on his truck and posted several videos ahead of the attack expressing his support for the radical Islamic organization, was killed by brave police officers during the attack.

Police found homemade explosive devices in his car, as well as placed around the French Quarter, meaning that Jabbar clearly planned for the attack to be even worse than it was.

New Orleans was set to host the Allstate Sugar Bowl on Wednesday, but after the attack, officials decided to postpone the College Football Playoff game between Notre Dame and Georgia to yesterday out of an abundance of caution and to make sure that the Caesars Superdome was secure for everyone in attendance.

Bourbon Street was cleared yesterday and reopened to the public ahead of the game, which kicked off with a message from President Joe Biden on the strength of the people of New Orleans:

“Today all of America stands with the people of New Orleans. We pray for those killed and injured in yesterday’s attack, and we are grateful, grateful to the brave first responders who raced to save lives.

I’m glad the game is back on today, but I’m not surprised, because the spirit of New Orleans can never be kept down. And that’s also true for the spirit of America.”

But a statement from the CEO of the game’s sponsor, Allstate Insurance, that was played during the broadcast clearly missed the mark.

Instead of condemning the terrorist who commited the evil attack, or praising the resilience of the people of New Orleans, Allstate CEO Tom Wilson instead decided to deliver a lecture on “divisiveness” and our need to “accept people’s imperfections and differences.”

“Our prayers went to victims and their families. We also need to be stronger together by overcoming an addiction to divisiveness and negativity. Join Allstate working in local communities all across America to amplify the positive, increase trust and accept people’s imperfections and differences. Together we win.” 

Umm, maybe you should be telling that to the terrorists and not the people watching the game. This wasn’t a result of “divisiveness” or not accepting some crazy guy’s imperfections. This was an evil terrorist attack by a monster who wanted to disrupt our very way of life and cause fear and chaos in the lives of freedom-loving Americans.

Well as you can imagine, the message didn’t go over well – and Allstate quickly deleted it from their social media.

But the internet is forever, and so are the comments blasting Wilson and Allstate for their tone-deaf statement:

Just insane to lecture us on “divisiveness” at a time when the country is recovering from a terrorist attack caused by a radical ideology that refuses to “accept people’s imperfections and differences” and seeks to sow chaos and fear no matter the cost.

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