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Slick, expensively printed No on Measure Z fliers have been filling mailboxes and recycling bins in Santa Cruz for weeks. One thing this vote will show is how much democracy $850,000-plus — the amount spent by Big Soda corporations to defeat Measure Z — can buy. The No campaign did its research well. It did not take recourse to its long campaign to deny or cover up the connection between soft-drink consumption and diabetes.  Recognizing Santa Cruz as a generally progressive city,  it crafted its campaign accordingly.  

In a stunning display of hypocrisy and cynicism, Measure Z is framed as a piece of classist, racist legislation that targets the poor, and the flyers and the door-to-door campaign have featured people of color to emphasize that point. For a clearer picture of Big Sugar’s racial politics, though, let’s turn to Atlanta, Coca-Cola headquarters.

 In 2021, the Atlanta City government announced plans to build a large police training center in the middle of the largest urban forest in the United States. Most of the funds for the project have come from the Atlanta Police Foundation, a private, corporate-funded group that supports the police force and influences policy. Opponents referred to the project as Cop City, and rose in protest. Atlanta voters voted overwhelmingly against the project,  and the protest movement against the project drew together a broad coalition of African American community and religious organizations, the Indigenous Muscogee tribe, who were the original inhabitants of the land, and environmental groups. Protests were ongoing, creative and community-building.  

The police responded in force, closing down the protests and killing one protester. Cop City is now under construction. In 2022, when the controversy and protests were raging and construction had not yet begun, the Coca-Cola company donated $1 million dollars to the Atlanta Police Foundation in support of the project. This might offer a clearer picture of where Coca-Cola’s social values lie.  

Chris Connery

Santa Cruz