Not only is Arizona's outrageous new profiling law, SB 1070, getting ready to cost the state about $90 million dollars in lost tourism and convention revenue in the next five years, it might just cost Arizona the 2011 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
Today, dozens of prominent civil rights, immigrant rights, progressive, Latino, and sports voices joined together to call on Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to Move the 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix, Arizona.
The organizations and advocates signing onto the letter also include the AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union, People For the American Way, Voto Latino, the Center for Community Change, and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network; and an array of bloggers and representatives from online outlets, including Markos Moulitsas Zúñiga of Daily Kos, and Julio Pabon of LatinoSports.com.
John Amato has a good run-down of the activities that accompany the letter over at Crooks and Liars:
Along with our action, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) has issued a boycott to the state of Arizona over the new law.
BOYCOTT/INTOLERANCE
Presente.org partnered with [Fenton and MoveOn.org] to design a website and petition drive to move the 2011 All Star game from Arizona called:
Move The Game.
[With MoveOn.org, they've] already collected over 100,000 signatures for their petition and are preparing to deliver them to MLB.
Bud Selig and MLB have tried to hide behind a wall of silence. That won't fly any longer.
Please call MLB and ask Bud Selig to respond on this important issue.
English: 866-956-3902
Spanish: 866-587-3023
Only with continued pressure coming from you will the commissioner of baseball ever take a principled stand on the Arizona law that is already spreading from state to state.
Another of the signers, Howie Klein, has a post up today that deals with death threats Rep. Grijalva has received because of his calls for a boycott of Arizona.
According to the AP, even Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the Senate's lone Latino, has taken a firm stand in calling for a boycott of the Major League Baseball All Star Game in Phoenix, if the law is not repealed:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Robert Menendez is urging the Major League Baseball Players Association to boycott next year's All Star Game in Phoenix over the recently passed Arizona law to crack down on illegal immigrants.
The New Jersey Democrat says in a letter that 27 percent of Major League players are Latinos and they shouldn't be subjected to a law Menendez says codifies racial profiling.
Rep. Jose Serrano, a New York Democrat, has similarly asked the players to boycott the 2011 event, noting that in 1993 the National Football League rescinded its offer to host the Super Bowl in Arizona because it didn't then recognize Martin Luther King day.
Players Association Executive Director Michael Weiner has come out against the law, saying it could negatively impact hundreds of players.
Via Presente.org:
The Major League Baseball All-Star Game is scheduled for Phoenix, Arizona, in 2011 and could bring as much as $60 million to the state. Now that Arizona has passed SB 1070, which essentially legalizes racial profiling, Latino players like Padres infielder Adrian Gonzalez are pledging not to attend the game. Let's support their stance and tell Major League Baseball Commisioner Bud Selig to move the game unless Arizona changes the law.
Even Arnold agrees the Arizona law would target people with "funny accents," like him, unfairly... So now the question is, what's taking Selig so long to speak up?
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Cross-Posted at America's Voice