Like most Americans, I believe Arizona overreached with its racial profiling immigration bill. As infuriating as the law is, the rush to condemn Arizona has included certain inexcusable tactics we should deplore and calls for condemnation that we should explore before jumping in with a blanket boycott.
Most Americans agree that we should bring immigrants out of the shadows, where they are exploited by employers driving down community wages for unskilled laborers, abused by human traffickers and gangbangers, and unable to assert their basic human rights for fear that others will report and deport them. The way forward is a solution between amnesty and removal: a policy that secures our borders and offers a conditional path to citizenship that includes getting in line behind legal immigrants, paying taxes and fees, starting to learn English, and being of good behavior. This is the essence of the bi-partisan Kennedy-McCain and Schumer-Graham proposals, and the best way forward for our oldest and newest Americans. The Arizona law takes this fight in the wrong direction -- it is constitutionally suspect in allowing stops based upon the appearance of non-citizenship, and conspicuously lax on penalties for false claims or racial profiling.
When something as blatantly offensive as the Arizona law is passed, the first instinct is to strike back -- hard -- with equal force. But our first instincts are not always our best instincts. Swastikas smeared on windows and water bottles tossed at police won't do. We must encourage peaceful protest and respectful dialog if we are to overcome our differences. Each of us who deplored the US Capitol protests with Nazi symbols and insults hurled at African American and openly gay Members of Congress by tea party activists must deplore intolerance at the Arizona Capitol with equal vigor.
As a Californian who has enjoyed family visits and cactus league baseball in Arizona, I am concerned that some of my city and state's elected officials are calling for blanket boycotts without publicly exploring the side effects. Before condemning Arizona, let's consider these elements:
1. What do Arizonans want? Republicans are driving Latinos into the arms of the Democratic Party - do they want their welcome to be a boycott that punishes their families or an engagement that empowers change? I have heard from people in and out of Arizona who urge boycotts, decry boycotts, and preach caution. I am most interested here in asking whether boycotts punish the very people - such as hotel employees, restaurant wait staff, and taxi drivers - we progressives are trying to support. Many have suggested shielding Latino businesses from a blanket boycott. Why not wait a few days to fully engage immigration allies in Arizona and determine what they want for their state before we decide for them?
2. Must we act right this minute? There were months of negotiations not 3 days before the late 1980s-early 1990s boycott of Arizona after they denied a MLK holiday . Respectful dialog first might be a sign of goodwill, especially among allies. Might there be efforts to elect Democrats in November, place an referendum on the ballot, or estop implementation of the Arizona law before travel bans and cancelled contracts?
3. What if Arizona turned the tables and boycotted us? We have already had to fight House Floor votes to cut off funding for sanctuary cities like San Francisco, such as then-Congressman Tom Tancredo's 2007 amendment banning Department of Homeland Security emergency funds to sanctuary cities in 2007 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctuary_city by a wide margin of 234-to-189. We seek tolerance when San Francisco is singled out - perhaps we should grant the same to Arizonans.
4. Would a boycott escalate the hate? Remember the unhelpful Bill O'Reilly threat to cut off military aid to San Francisco even in response to a terrorist attack http://politifi.com/news/OReilly-to-San-Francisco-If-Al-Qaeda-comes-in-here-and-blows-you-up-were-not-going-to-do-anything-about-it-You-want-to-blow-up-the-Coit-Tower-Go-ahead-235983.html after the a ballot measure passed by 60 percent of San Francisco voters urged public high schools and colleges to prohibit on-campus military recruiting? Knowing the powder keg of public sentiment, would a blanket boycott inflame more than it informs?
Perhaps a consideration of all these factors will yield a consensus that condemning Arizona is indeed the approach welcomed by Arizonans, in the fullness of a timely debate, welcomed even by people who would suffer economically, despite the incendiary rhetoric . Perhaps not. We won't know until we ask -- and ask we must. Blanket boycotts won't achieve social justice. As tempting as grandstanding can be, thoughtful research, careful calibration, and respectful dialog are in my opinion more effective tools to achieve a repeal of the Arizona law and enactment of national immigration reform.
Follow Christine Pelosi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sfpelosi
If everyone who knows anyone who employs illegals gave their acquaintances 2 weeks to get those illegals off the payroll, and then made good on their threats to demand prosecution of all illegal EMPLOYERS, the dynamics would change almost overnight.
The crucial value of these people to the economy would become evident. The epidemic hypocrisy of whining about the problem they themselves are causing through illegal employment would be exposed. A whole new conversation would start about effective reform to the generations-long Republican stategy of funneling cheap, unprotected-by-law labor to agribusiness and those-who-can-afford-domestics.
Maybe someone would even notice that the rise in teh number of resident illegals correlates to the increase in the present, counter-productive enforcement efforts.
Mexicans used to cycle in and out of the US. Now it is so hard to get *back* in that they dare never go home.
Fine and jail ALL the illegal employers and for forces of pragmatism will overtake the presently ascendant forces of ideology. Some sort of effective policy will result and law enforcement will be free to concentrate on the drug runners, thieves and gangs rather than pouring out tax dollars in the desert sands.
J
Agree with most of your post except the "racist to its core" remark since I know open-minded Republicans and resist painting an entire party with a broad brush.
My key question still remains: what about the human cost of a boycott?
Would you be wiling to pay into a "strike fund" of sorts to help workers laid off by the boycott?
Demonizing the opponent mirrors those directing the opponent and plays right into their divide and conquer strategy.
The facts are bad enough. No need exagerrate the presentation of the facts with FOX style hyperbole.
The point I am making is that if you take race out of the GOP, they aren't one party, they collapse under the weight of the competing ideologies. That is what I meant by racist at its core. I know it is a quibble to point out the different between "at its core" and to its core," :-) but i used at its core deliberately.
Thanks for the response, I really appreciate it.
J
Normally I would agree with you. Thoughtful calculating opposition is worth more than heat of the moment knee jerk reaction. However, this isn't knee jerk. AZ has major tourism issues already. The recession has hurt the state. In a weakened position AZ has over reached and there is a benefit to strong reaction. Even in disproportionate response. What AZ decided to do, and make no mistake they did it with calculation and reason, is attempt to force Hispanics from the state. Legal and illegal. They are attempting to maintain their majority, and they are doing it for a host of reasons, some pure, but mostly selfish and cynical.
This is both a civil rights fight and a political one. Of course we don't condone swastikas or attacking police. I have not encountered a dem who does. But we will not be silent as AZ codifies racial discrimination. This bill is Jim Crow. Unconstitutional on its face. While it seems like short term thinking to attack so quickly and so thoroughly, it is sound strategy.
While I can appreciate the desire to pursue passive alternatives to a symbolic boycott, I can recall hearing similar sentiments from some people in regards to the Selma Boycott, and the SNC sit-ins, alternatively the opposition to equality showed up at every march or protest in force, weapons in hand with their hatred gleaming.
Is this so much different, while I understand that border states experience illiegal immigration more pronouncly than other states, but never-the-less the effects of illegal immigration are felt elsewhere as well.
But to pretend that in this economy there's even a possibility of spending 100's of billions on short-term border security is simply another pharse, the simplest thing to do is to deal with comprehensive immigration reform, establish alternatives to a criminal existence, and then using the revenue gained from limited fines, improve border security. No need for the gestapo
J
I know a lovely lady who escaped Hitler's Germany as a child, but still has a pronounced German accent. She also tans rather dark. She and her husband have spent their winters in Arizona for several years - I have to wonder whether they'll be going back. I wouldn't.
While I appreciate Ms. Pelosi's article, I somewhat (embarrassingly) agree with Tancredo's wanting some sort of penalty for sanctuary cities. In the past few years, both NYC and San Francisco dealt with murders that could have been avoided had they not been sanctuary cities.
Arizonans are getting sick and tired of being dictated to in the matter of illegal immigrants. If the federal government will not do its job protecting its borders, Arizona will find a way.
Certainly stepped up enforcement of the laws that already exist would be a good idea, but no one (especially a lot of the people who are screaming the loudest) wants to spend money. The company I work for just found out how well that works - try to do things on the cheap (i.e., send most of your jobs to India and leave a skeleton staff at home) and you end up spending *more* money to clean up the mess that results.
Right-wingers (I'm not saying you're one, am10!) also might want to consider St. Ronald Reagan. "He signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which included stepped up border enforcement and sanctions against employers who knowingly hire illegal workers. But that legislation also legalized 2.8 million undocumented workers." (http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=2705)
Just because the bill was not a ballot vote does not mean the people were powerless. Where were their voices when the legislative debate was taking place? Where were the "thousands" of demonstrators BEFORE the bill was signed? Boycotting may harm some individuals but their unwillingness or their complacency or their timidness, or whatever it was, to fight this thing until it's defeat says to me that they bear some responsibility for this bill becoming law.
I DO feel for the porters and the security guards and the hotel desk staff, or anyone else who might be affected by reduced volume. But maybe the boycott is a way to get them roused up so that they join the call for their employers to step up and do the right thing.