All Over the Map
By: Liz Massey

Buying Into It
Voting with your pocketbook can work

It’s boycott season again.

If you’re living in Arizona, there’s all sorts of boycott-related news to keep up on. Out-of-state people and organizations are avoiding the state because of the passage of SB1070. Closer to home, many of us are debating whether to participate in a national gay boycott of Target, to punish them for the contributions made by the company to a Republican candidate for governor in Minnesota who has anti-gay extremist ties. There was even a suggested boycott of the recent One Community Day at the Diamondbacks at Chase Field because of the contributions of the team’s managing general partner, Ken Kendrick, to pro-SB1070 candidates.

I’ve always done my best to participate in boycotts organized by the LGBT community, although quite honestly, I often just started “consciously” avoiding businesses I didn’t patronize to begin with. But I was politically correct in this area in those days … I never ordered delivery from Dominos Pizza, wouldn’t step foot inside a Cracker Barrel for years, and tried to figure out how to ignore the entire state of Colorado after its voters passed Amendment 2 in 1992.

I know that voting with one’s pocketbook can work. The boycott has a proud history as a tool of social change, with the Montgomery Bus Boycott being one of the cornerstone events of the African-American civil rights movement. Still, the tactic doesn’t have my unqualified approval.

In the case of the anti-SB1070 boycott against Arizona, I’m seeing the other side of the situation that I watched during the “boycott Colorado” days. Our state is feeling the heat, no pun intended. With the hospitality industry taking the brunt of the rejection, the boycott is yet another body blow to a state that’s already staggering from the implosion of the housing market and its lack of economic diversification.

The Target boycott is more nuanced than the SB1070 action. Here we have a corporate employer that got a perfect 100 score in 2009 and 2010 from the Human Rights Campaign in terms of workplace fairness. The extremist anti-gay rhetoric espoused by other supporters of Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer is shocking and disgusting, to be sure. But is a boycott the best way to get the attention of a company that has been our ally?

Another angle to boycotts that bothers me is the focus on “avoiding” something. It’s necessary for the tactic to work, of course, but for a lot of us, participating in multiple boycotts is a little like dieting — I know I’m supposed to avoid the “bad foods” in order to be healthy, but I have no idea what to eat in their stead — or how I’m supposed to replace all the items I’ve previously purchased from “tainted” merchants or industries.

Luckily, there is a positive shopping step that advances equality and allows us to take care of our basic needs: buying locally from gay or gay-friendly businesses.

Buying from local, independent businesses can pump life into the economy and make a direct impact on the owner’s profit.

Local First Arizona, a coalition of independent business owners throughout the state, reports that for every $100 spent with a local merchant, $73 remains in the community, compared with $43 for the same amount of money spent at a national chain. There’s an immediate incentive for your neighborhood retailer to earn and retain your patronage — if the company fails, he or she will be the one shuttering the windows, rather than some bureaucratic “corporate downsizing” team.

The LGBT nation is known for its brand loyalty. Once we trust a company, we tend to stick with it. On a national level, that’s earned us visibility in corporate ad campaigns and sponsorships for our community activities. Perhaps now is the time to leverage our loyalty with the businesses around us and remake the face of “main street” economics and political life.

In Phoenix, at least, it’s clear that a lot of businesspeople want our attention, and not all of them are our queer brethren: out of the more than 450 merchants who belong to the Greater Phoenix Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, scores of them are owned by straight allies.

As the saying goes, “our money spends just like everyone else’s.” Let’s take that quote and put it into action, supporting the people whom we know, who also support us.