It's appropriate that I'm drinking
a can of Sunkist soda as I read
an interview with an old orange
rancher from Orange County.
Sunkist was local brand.
It used to represent oranges,
but now it represents
sugary soda water.
And what do the oranges represent?
Power. Political, economic, local.
Unrecognized immigrant labor.
The Ku Klux Klan.
Patriotic parades.
Segregated housing and schools
and theaters and pools
Segregated people.
The haves and the have-nots.
First and second class citizens.
Church-goers blind to social injustice.
That is what the oranges represent to me.
