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.
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:
[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.
