'America the Beautiful'? The Superbowl, the White Right, and Coca-Cola's History of Racism

White nativists and the present day heirs of the Know-Nothing Party in the GOP--to the degree they can be separated from one another--are upset about Coca-Cola's "America the Beautiful" commercial during the Superbowl. 

Their anger reflects a fear about a changing America where mediocre white people such as themselves are "losing" their country to "undeserving" black and brown folks.

Of course, it is obligatory that the White Right has deployed buckdancing, right-wing, self-hating, political black face performers such as Allen West to serve as mouthpieces for their racist sentiments about Coca-Cola's recent "America the Beautiful" commercial.

History laughs at us all; she does this both for sport and because of her own mercurial nature.

Jim and Jane Crow America was not limited to the iconic visuals of public memory such as segregated water fountains and discriminatory seating in buses. White supremacy was a total social order, one that extended even to soda consumption, and its marketing, in the United States.


The New York Times explored this in a recent piece by the historian Grace Elizabeth Hale:

Candler began marketing the drink as “refreshing” rather than medicinal, and managed to survive the controversy. But concerns exploded again after the company pioneered its distinctive glass bottles in 1899, which moved Coke out of the segregated spaces of the soda fountain. Anyone with a nickel, black or white, could now drink the cocaine-infused beverage.

Middle-class whites worried that soft drinks were contributing to what they saw as exploding cocaine use among African-Americans. Southern newspapers reported that “negro cocaine fiends” were raping white women, the police powerless to stop them. By 1903, Candler had bowed to white fears (and a wave of anti-narcotics legislation), removing the cocaine and adding more sugar and caffeine.

Coke’s recipe wasn’t the only thing influenced by white supremacy: through the 1920s and ’30s, it studiously ignored the African-American market. Promotional material appeared in segregated locations that served both races, but rarely in those that catered to African-Americans alone.

Consequently, Coca-Cola was transformed into the white man's drink during the early part of the twentieth century. Likewise, Pepsi was slurred as "nigger Coke" because of its efforts to reach out to the African-American community in order to profit maximize by filling a market niche.

Stupidity often triumphs despite itself. On occasion, stupidity also wins because of how persistent willpower pays dividends in many areas of life.

To point. The Right-wing troglodytes who are upset about Coca-Cola's use of the song "America the Beautiful", which was written by a woman with populist leanings who happened to be a lesbian, are retrograde actors who want to pull Coca-Cola backwards and not forwards in terms of the company's racial politics.

And what is lost in all of this desperate performance by the White Right in their opposition to the company's multilingual performance of the song "America the Beautiful"? Coca-Cola is a multinational, global company, one that has no loyalty to either the United States or the White Right's antiquated notions of "real America".

Coca-Cola does not care about the White Right. It is beholden to the stockholders. Profits trump people. Of course, as is the habit of the Republican Party in the post civil rights era, white racial identity politics are preferred as a default strategy to avoid discussing how white racism and xenophobia hurts all Americans across the color line.