USA Today is reporting that the Presbyterian Church (USA) recently decided to boycott travel to Arizona. The denomination voted earlier this month to “refrain from holding national meetings in states where travel by immigrant Presbyterians or Presbyterians of color might subject them to harassment due to legislation.” The Arizona Republic ran a similar headline and story earlier this week.

First of all, this “boycott” isn’t as big as it could have been. The official PCUSA news release says nothing about the Presbyterian Church (USA) discouraging its members from traveling to Arizona. (Or did I miss something?) It only says they won’t be holding “national meetings” there. I’m not sure if there are other national meetings but their General Assembly only happens once every two years. Perhaps there are other councils or committees that meet regularly and will be affected by this decision. Regardless, it’s not a full-fledged boycott– so in the scheme of things, the vote will end up being largely symbolic. In spirit, however, the Presbyterians did intend a boycott, and that’s what I want to deal with here.

It’s a classic example of trying to correct wrongs with more wrongs. Arizona passed their controversial law because the federal government dropped the ball on border control. But no matter what the law’s supporters say, it does open the door for abuse and racial profiling. Yes, the law says that papers can only be checked if there’s another police matter already taking place, but anyone who’s had any experience living or working in the inner city knows that a police officer who wants to stop someone can “find” a reason. I’ve been stopped for silly reasons (e.g. coming to a full stop one foot past the stop sign) — usually when there were minorities in my car.  I’ve also witnessed Latino and black teenagers being stopped, searched and provoked by cops for doing nothing more than yelling from a car window. Essentially, Arizona is taking  federal law into its own hands– and giving that small percentage of bad cops a license to harass Latinos.

In an attempt to correct that wrong, Presbyterians and other groups are attempting to “punish” Arizona with these boycotts– but they’re really punishing many of the people of color they claim to be trying to help. Do these groups think that only the politicians are going to be hurt by these measures? People of all races work in the Arizona tourism and service industries. It seems to me that the Presbyterians and all these other groups (including my own city, Austin) are making political statements at the expense of ordinary, hard-working folks. Three wrongs don’t make a right.

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