The Continued Price of Bigotry

I have often argued - and studies have confirmed - that states and regions that embrace bigotry and intolerance suffer economically and find themselves on the bottom of the heap in the quest to attract businesses and investment. Alabama is finding out just how true this is in the wake of its new anti-foreigner immigration law which, as noted last week, lead to the arrest of a Mercedes-Benz executive. That debacle may be a belated wake up call to folks in Alabama who truly need to get their heads out of their asses and come into the 21st century. Yes, the Bible thumping Christianists and white supremacists (increasingly these two toxic elements are one and the same) who hate blacks, gays, immigrants of all stripes and Hispanics in particular will shriek and howl, but it's time that their pernicious influence be kicked to the curb if the state seeks to prosper. An editorial in the New York Times looks at the price Alabama has inflicted on itself. Here are highlights:

It’s early yet for a full accounting of the economic damage Alabama has done to itself with its radical new immigration law. Farmers can tally the cost of crops left to rot as workers flee. Governments can calculate the loss of revenues when taxpayers flee. It’s harder to measure the price of a ruined business reputation or the value of investments lost or productivity lost as Alabamians stand in line for hours to prove their citizenship in any transaction with the government.

A growing number of Alabamians say the price will be too high, and there is compelling evidence that they are right. Alabama is already at the low end of states in employment and economic vitality. It has long struggled to lure good jobs and shed a history of racial intolerance.

That was turning around and many foreign manufacturers, including Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and Honda, have set up there. Its business-friendly reputation took a serious blow with the arrest in Tuscaloosa of a visiting Mercedes manager who was caught driving without his license and taken to jail as a potential illegal immigrant.

Sheldon Day, the mayor of Thomasville, has aggressively recruited foreign companies to his town, including a Chinese company — Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group. . . . Mayor Day is now worried about that project and future prospects. He was quoted by The Press-Register in Mobile as saying business inquiries had dried up since the law was passed. “I know the immigration issue is being used against us.”

For all of the talk about clearing the way for unemployed Americans, there is no evidence that Alabamians in any significant numbers are rushing to fill the gap left by missing farm laborers and other low-wage immigrant workers.

The law’s damage is particularly heartbreaking in poor towns across the state, where small businesses are the economic lifeblood. We’ve spoken with Latino shopkeepers and restaurant owners in places like Albertville who say business is catastrophically down, with customers in hiding or flight. The situation isn’t much better in Huntsville and Birmingham.

There should be no doubt about the moral repugnance of Alabama’s law, which seeks to deny hardworking families the means to live. But even some of the law’s most enthusiastic supporters are beginning to acknowledge the law’s high economic cost. There is growing talk of revising or repealing the legislation. The sooner Alabama does so — and other states learn — the better.

Will Virginia learn from Alabama's debacle? Probably not given the near mentally ill members of the GOP here in Virginia that will likely sign on to the lunacy of Ken Kookinelli Cuccinelli and Christofascist Bob Marshall. Only a severe negative economic impact might wake folks up. Meanwhile, backwater areas of the state will become even less attractive to would be investors and new businesses.