Tropical Fantasy Sody Conspiracy Theory

                  We all have a natural inclination to give more weight to evidence that supports what we already believe.  Fear of black plant was very real to a lot of people and even though many conspiracy theories related to this topic have been disproven, there seems to always be at least a grain of truth mixed in with all the lies.

                   In my first post, I talked about the Church’s Chicken conspiracy.  It was the theory that the chicken was being tainted by the KKK with something that would cause black people to become sterile if they ate the chicken.  That of course was unfound but that didn’t keep people from moving on to another similar conspiracy that involved Tropical Fantasy Soda.

                  It started in the fall of 1990.  A new soda called Tropical Fantasy hit the market in inner city New York.  It was only 49 cents for a 20 ounce bottle so naturally it became an overnight success.  That was until someone started paying children to distribute leaflets alleging that the soda was manufactured by the Ku Klux Klan and that it contained a drug that caused sterility in blacks and other minorities. 

                  While this may seems just as crazy as The Church’s Chicken conspiracy, it does make you a little skeptical.  After all, at the time of the Church’s Chicken conspiracy, some states still had sterilization laws on the books.  So why couldn’t this theory be true?  If the government could pull off sterilizing black people without their knowledge, why couldn’t a soda company?   Well, turns out it wasn’t true.  And the Health department was able to test the drink and found no evidence of tampering.  Rumors then began to surface that Tropical Fantasy’s competitors Coke and Pepsi were behind all the false rumors.

                  Regardless, even false beliefs have lessons to teach us.  When a conspiracy theory catches on, that says something about the anxieties and experience of the people that believe them.