La Raza announced last week that it was lifting its boycott of Arizona, imposed last year in response to the passage of SB 1070, the state's controversial immigration law. I missed the announcement because, you know, what boycott? They put a brave face on the whole thing, saying they'd succeeded in scaring off other states from passing similar measures (except Alabama, Indiana, Georgia, South Carolina, and Utah, of course!). But this was really just surrendering to the obvious — their boycott was a flop and backfired on them, an act of impotent bravado. Even L.A., San Francisco, and Oakland, which voted to join the boycott, did nothing to implement it; as the LA Times pointed out:
None of those jurisdictions has canceled a contract with an Arizona-based company because of the boycott — leading some immigrant-rights activists to dismiss the high-profile calls for economic sanctions as empty symbolism.
It's worse than just empty symbolism, because making a threat that you can't back up exposes you as a paper tiger, a fraud, and someone not to be taken seriously next time you make a threat. So, please, La Raza, make more threats!
