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colin kaepernick
Holy Scandal-rooski! What You Won't Learn From State Farm's NFL Playoff Ads
The insurance giant—one of the nation's largest—does some bundling that hasn’t gotten the media attention it deserves, especially given the climate devastation in Los Angeles that the whole country has been watching on TV.
Jan 11, 2025
With NFL playoffs about to begin, State Farm Insurance will be constantly running commercials in which multimillionaire Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid and his multimillionaire star player Patrick Mahomes belittle themselves by using their fame to personally cash in instead of using it like, say, Colin Kaepernick did, to address an issue of social significance. True to form, the NFL blackballed Kaepernick but at least he maintained his dignity.
In one commercial Reid acts goofy as he repeatedly says “Bundle-rooski” to describe Star Farm’s plan for bundling home and auto insurance. State Farm does some other bundling that hasn’t gotten the media attention it deserves, especially given the devastation in Los Angeles that the whole country has been watching on TV.
This other bundling couples State Farm’s refusal to insure tens of thousands of homes in fire prone areas with State Farm’s doubling down on investing in the fossil fuel industry. Not insuring properties that seem guaranteed to cost the company lots of money seems like good business sense. But it becomes shameful if coupled with also propping up the fossil fuel industry.
The Los Angeles Rams are hosting an NFL playoff game this weekend but because of the fossil fuel driven wildfires the game has been moved from LA to Arizona and, of all places, State Farm Stadium.
The fires in LA are called natural disasters but that’s not an apt description by itself. We are all witnessing the increasing number and magnitude of droughts, floods, heatwaves and storms that climate scientists have been warning us about for decades. Much of the discussion now is about how we need to adapt to the new climate reality, which is true. But the first rule for getting out of a hole is to stop digging and the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results.
We need to quickly and greatly cut back on our burning of fossil fuels. State Farm needs to stop investing in fossil fuels before much more of the country becomes uninsurable.
The country said goodbye this week to Jimmy Carter, a most decent man who tried to set us on a path to renewable energy almost 50 years ago. Now we’re about to reinstall his direct opposite. We must resist. We must stand with each other and for the common good.
The Los Angeles Rams are hosting an NFL playoff game this weekend but because of the fossil fuel driven wildfires the game has been moved from LA to Arizona and, of all places, State Farm Stadium. If you watch be on the lookout for the “Bundlerooski” commercials, then spare a thought for Colin Kaepernick, Jimmy Carter, all the uninsured people in LA who lost everything…and State Farm’s scandalrooski.
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Kaepernick to Fund Independent Autopsy for Atlanta Inmate Found Dead in Insect-Infested Cell
"We want to thank Colin Kaepernick for helping this family get to the truth and soon," said civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump, who is representing relatives of Lashawn Thompson.
Apr 21, 2023
Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump on Thursday said that former NFL quarterback and racial justice activist Colin Kaepernick will pay for an independent autopsy for Lashawn Thompson, a mentally ill man who died last September in a filthy, insect-infested cell in an overcrowded Atlanta jail.
Crump spoke at a rally and news conference outside the Fulton County Jail, where Thompson, who was arrested last June for alleged misdemeanor simple battery, was held for three months before his death.
"We want to thank Colin Kaepernick for helping this family get to the truth and soon," Crump said, flanked by Thompson's relatives.
"What happened to Lashawn Thompson is a human rights violation," the attorney added. "If we don't ask the questions and we don't get the answers and we don't get to the truth, then next time it could be your loved one. This isn't just about Lashawn Thompson. This is about every citizen in Fulton County, Georgia."
Thompson, who suffered from mental health issues, was diagnosed with schizophrenia and transferred to the jail's psychiatric wing. According to jail records, on September 13 an officer saw Thompson slumped over in his cell, which was so dirty that a staff member who entered it wore protective gear. Inside, Thompson lay dead with his eyes open, his body covered with what Crump said were over 1,000 insect bites. Thompson was 35 years old.
\u201cThese are the DEPLORABLE and inhumane conditions Lashawn Thompson had to endure during his stay in the psychiatric wing of the Fulton County (GA) Jail. After his death, he was found with insect bites all over his body. We cannot look away, we must demand justice!\u201d— Ben Crump (@Ben Crump) 1682020687
Jail records show that medical and correctional staff repeatedly noted—and voiced concerns about—Thompson's deteriorating health but did not help him.
"They literally watched his health decline until he died," Michael Harper, another attorney representing Thompson's family, said in a statement.
Harper asserted that Thompson "was found dead in a filthy jail cell after being eaten alive by insects and bed bugs."
An official autopsy could not determine the cause of Thompson's death but noted an "extremely severe" insect infestation on his body.
"Can you imagine him screaming and him hollering, saying 'They biting, they biting' and nobody come," Thompson's aunt, Mamie Norman, said at Thursday's rally. "Nobody. Nobody. I still have no understanding until y'all find out what happened to him."
\u201cBrad McCray \u2014 #LashawnThompson\u2019s brother \u2014 speaking TRUTH to power about the bug-infested conditions Lashawn was forced to live in at the Fulton County Jail. #JusticeForLashawnThompson\u201d— Ben Crump (@Ben Crump) 1682035943
A report obtained last year from NaphCare—an institutional healthcare services contractor repeatedly accused of neglect—revealed widespread medical negligence in Fulton County Jail's mental health unit, where more than 90% of inmates were so severely malnourished that they developed cachexia, a wasting syndrome often associated with diseases like advanced cancer or AIDS.
Additionally, "100% of inmates" in the unit "had either lice, scabies, or both."
Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat—who called Thompson's death "absolutely unconscionable"—earlier this week asked for and received the resignation of three top jail officials, including Chief Jailer John Jackson.
"It's clear to me that it's time, past time, to clean house," Labat said in a statement on Monday.
An October 2022 investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed that a record number of inmates are dying in Georgia's five largest county jails, and that Fulton County Jail has led the state in such deaths since 2009.
Overcrowding and understaffing plague the facility, where around half of the more than 3,000 inmates have not been charged with any crime. Labat admitted that more than 400 inmates were sleeping on the floor because of overcrowding.
"The type of infestations that contributed to Mr. Thompson's death are going to be a recurring problem in a jail where hundreds of detainees do not have cells and have to sleep on the floor," the sheriff said on Thursday.
\u201cAlmost half of the 3,000 people held at the Fulton County jail have not been formally charged with a crime. There is no amount of money in the world for new jails that can redeem this. Let people go home. \n\n@elizabethweill \n\nhttps://t.co/7cNT2VTjqk\u201d— Clara T Green (@Clara T Green) 1681419515
Sakira Cook, vice president of campaigns, policy, and government at the racial justice group Color of Change, said Thursday in a statement that "like Lashawn Thompson, countless individuals are currently enduring completely inhumane conditions at the severely overcrowded Fulton County Jail—often waiting for months at a time for frequently minor offenses and small amounts of cash bail."
"This must end. Despite years of scrutiny, the neglect and inhumane conditions within the jail have persisted, with little to no meaningful changes in prosecutorial practices or conditions," Cook added. "The current dark reality of mass incarceration is not accidental, but rather the consequence of intentional policies crafted by a dominant white culture that perpetuates and profits from the suppression of Black individuals through the jailing system."
On Thursday, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), who chairs the Senate Human Rights Subcommittee, announced the launch of an inquiry into conditions of incarceration in Georgia and nationwide. Previous Ossoff-led probes of U.S. carceral conditions revealed nearly 1,000 uncounted deaths, widespread sexual crimes, corruption, abuse, and misconduct at prisons and jails across the nation.
According to the Sentencing Project, an advocacy group, there are nearly 2 million people locked up in U.S. prisons and jails—a 500% increase over the past 40 years and more than any other country in the world, by far.
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How Dare They Show Up All Black and Excellent: Lift Every Voice
Feb 14, 2023
Boasting the usual hype, glitz, plugs and some football, Sunday also showcased what was arguably "the Blackest, most woke Super Bowl ever": Black History Month, two first-ever black quarterbacks, black performers, and sweet white Jesus a soaring Black National Anthem?! MAGA-land heads exploded: Satan, racism, divisiveness, leaving "NOTHING for the White People of our land!" "Hateful gargoyle" MTG: The white singer was good but "we could have gone without the wokeness." America: "You mean the blackness."
Given a relative universe and the ugly paradoxes of the NFL - two of three players are black in a gilded, long-segregated league where owners are so right-wing they blackballed Colin Kaepernick for putting his knee on the ground to protest cops daily killing innocent black people - it's understandable Americans hungry for a hopeful glimpse of progress could declare of this weekend's game, "This wasn’t the Super Bowl. This was Wakanda." Well, not quite. There was also Elon Musk sitting with Rupert Murdoch and a deluge of mostly mediocre $7-million-ads - Walter and Jesse, really? - including two unholy ones for Jesus ("He gets us") from supporters of a nationwide ban on abortion medication. AOC: "Something tells me Jesus would *not* spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads to make fascism look benign." But in this year's improbable "mirror for us all," a gaudy intermingling of capitalism, jingoism, sport and spectacle, there were signs corporate America is grudgingly realizing there are more people of conscience who support diversity and equity than MAGA hateful gargoyles, and there's money in it. Thus, two starting black quarterbacks, an end-zone that read, "End Racism," a traditional flyover by the first all-women pilot team, and a bounty of Black musical talent, from Babyface to Rihanna and her fabulous dancers.
And for the third year there was, Lord give us strength, a soaring rendition of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" by Sheryl Lee Ralph, star of the TV comedy "Abbott Elementary." A hymn written originally as a poem by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson in 1900 - his brother composed the music - it was first performed by a choir of 500 black schoolchildren at the Florida school where Johnson was principal to mark Abraham Lincoln's birthday on that date in 1809. 100 years later, with black Americans suffering widespread discrimination and brutalities by whites outraged they'd "forgotten their place," a group of progressives, black and white, met to create a new civil rights organization to "eradicate caste or race prejudice among citizens of the United States." Sorrowfully noting, “If Mr. Lincoln could revisit this country in the flesh he would be disheartened and discouraged," they chose the anniversary of his birth as the start of the NAACP. For years, W.E.B. DuBois edited its flagship journal The Crisis, calling out the "shame of America" that was its systemic racial inequality and arguing, "Silence under these conditions means tacit approval." The hymn became the official song of the NAACP in 1919, a rallying cry for civil rights activists, children of the segregated South, in the 1950s and 60s and, over time, an unofficial Black National Anthem.
Notwithstanding its rich history and Ralph's dazzling performance, bigots across America - who believe storming the capitol to overturn an election is a tourist visit but a song before a football game is treason - went berserk, raging about "their little stunt called the Black National Anthem." They went vicious, frenzied, petty, malevolent, delusional, feral: "All Blacks is what they are catering to, NOTHING for the White People of our land!" "There is only 1 National Anthem. Don't watch the game. Make it hurt." "ITS NO LONGER GOING TO BE THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER. ITS GOING TO BE THE RAINBOW BANNER WITH THE HOST SATAN." "You don't win by ceding ground to the woke...We must stand up and defend sports from those who want to destroy it." From a "huge NFL fan until the Chinese and woke corporations ruined it for me: Boycott the Super Bowl and watch the Puppy Bowl, with puppies rescued from Dr. Death Fauci's cruel lab." Bigly loser Kari Lake stayed pointedly, sullenly seated - white people taking a knee? - and posted, "I'm just here for THE National Anthem." (The game was in Arizona, so they probably wouldn't accept the result anyway.) "America has ONE NATIONAL ANTHEM. Why is the NFL trying to divide us?" bleated Lauren Boebert. "Do football, not wokeness."
Her frenemy MTG tried to compare and contrast. "Chris Stapleton just sang the most beautiful National Anthem," she wrote of the (white) country singer. "But we could have gone without the rest of the wokeness." Many noted the ignorance tacked onto the racism. In a famousinterview after George Floyd's murder, Stapleton cited a "broad awakening" and declared himself a BLM supporter: "It's time for me to listen...The country I thought we were living in was a myth." Twitter helped translate the rest of MTG: "She means the Black man and woman who sang just before him, and the ASL interpreters." And "a bunch of scary black people singing, dancing, playing football and sitting in Fox sportscaster chairs." And “Please say what you mean: You could’ve done without the black people." "Neanderthals are gonna Neanderthal," wrote Yvette Nicole Brown. "The #Wokeness this shitgibbon is referring to is (Ralph) and (Babyface) performing. How DARE they show up all black and excellent?" Desperate MAGA-ites also trashed Rihanna as "Satanic" (she wore red) and not as good as Ted Nugent; the Big Maggot himself chimed in with, "Epic fail," adding she'd also insulted "far more than half our nation (with) her foul and insulting language" (in a video a while back where she sprayed "Fuck Trump" on a car). And he congratulated "the great state of Kansas" for their win. The team's from Missouri. (Person, woman, man, camera, TV.)
Many were appalled by so much deep, raw, jagged hate: "In other words, white is good and black is bad...When you're used to privilege, equality feels like oppression....You people got issues and prolly all look the same...Woke up to MORE messages of people telling me that their children are 'traumatized' by Rihanna (and) I need to seek forgiveness in Christ because I’m not outraged about the performance. Some of you need to get a grip and learn to change the channel...Just say you're racists." Most tragically, all (or most) of the spewing was in the mindless service of
deriding a righteous, stirring, time-honored hymn to celebrate a people's freedom from slavery, and the courage of one white American president to work towards that. Scholars often pay tribute to the song's complex make-up, its "intimately held knowledge” not only of Black history, but of Black pride, resilience and resistance as it makes its poignant way from past to future, through stanzas moving from praise (“rejoicing,” “faith” “victory”) to lament ("the chastening rod,” “blood of the slaughtered”) to faith: "Keep us forever in the path, we pray." Above all, they cite a noble "anthem of universal uplift" that, in its careful use of only first-person plural pronouns, excludes no one and "speaks to every group that struggles." But only if you can hear it.
"Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us..."
\u201c.@thesherylralph with an incredible rendition of "Lift Every Voice and Sing". #SBLVII\u201d— NFL (@NFL) 1676243707
\u201cJust say you\u2019re racist @KariLake @mtgreenee @laurenboebert\u201d— DutchessPrim\ud83d\udc99 (@DutchessPrim\ud83d\udc99) 1676298459
Lift every voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list'ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered.
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.
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