Boycott This!

WARNING: Political Content Ahead!

This is a dif­fi­cult post to write. On the one hand, I vehe­mently oppose Arizona Senate Bill 1070; the so-called “immi­gra­tion law.” The law is noth­ing more than a patently trans­par­ent attempt by the right-wing to whip up sup­port amongst the racists here in order to make gains in this year’s elec­tions. It’s the Southern Strategy for a new cen­tury. On the other hand, I’m bemused by the spate of groups who have taken it upon them­selves to pun­ish Arizona by boy­cotting or can­cel­ing events here. Take, for exam­ple, the recent deci­sion by Hall and Oates to can­cel their Arizona dates as part of a “Sound Strike”.

What irks me about these calls to boy­cott has noth­ing to do with any sort of loy­alty to this gods-forsaken state. Nor do I base my crit­i­cism in the stan­dard right-wing canard that enter­tain­ers should not voice their polit­i­cal opin­ions. What angers me is the rank hypocrisy of many who have jumped to denounce us white dev­ils here in the desert.

Hypocrisy, you say, what­ever can you mean by that?

What I mean is this: Two years ago the vot­ers of California approved a vile and big­oted mea­sure known as Proposition 8, which stripped the right to marry from homo­sex­u­als. As an aside I’ll note that, unlike Prop 8, AZ SB 1070 was not approved by the peo­ple of Arizona, it was the prod­uct of our State Legislature. When CA Prop. 8 passed there was a great out­cry from the Left; there were even calls for boy­cotts. So, I sup­pose that us hon­keys in Arizona should take com­fort in the fact that California is being pun­ished along with Arizona by these artists of conscience.

…Oh wait, they’re not.

Take, for instance the par­tic­i­pants in the Sound Strike linked above. Many of them, includ­ing those lords of mag­nif­i­cent hair Hall and Oates, are play­ing events in the queer-hating state of California. Where is your social con­science now boys? Or do you just like bean­ers more than faggots?

Or, could it be that it’s just more con­ve­nient to boy­cott Arizona. California is where the money’s at, after all. How much really is skip­ping a date in Arizona going to impact your pocket book? Besides, it’s like a thou­sand fuck­ing degrees here right now.

Let me reit­er­ate, and make this as crystal-clear as I can. I do not sup­port AZ SB 1070. As an actual res­i­dent of this state, I will do every­thing in my power to see it’s ulti­mate repeal or inval­i­da­tion via the courts. Bigotry; be it racism, sex­ism, homo­pho­bia or any other form is intol­er­a­ble. However, these boy­cotts serve no other pur­pose than to act as pain­less way for the enti­tled and elite to feign social consciousness.

Activism, when per­formed only when con­ve­nient, is worth­less. The hypocrisy on dis­play by those call­ing for boy­cotts of Arizona, while turn­ing a blind eye to the big­otry of the peo­ple of California, does noth­ing more than inflame the pas­sions of the right-wing in Arizona. I expect that the Arizona Republican Party will be send­ing Hall and Oates a nice fruit bas­ket thank­ing them for the support.