Racism is bad for business.

That’s what Arizona should have learned 20 years ago when civil rights groups boycotted to punish the state for its stubborn refusal to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. with a state holiday. The NFL pulled the Super Bowl from the Phoenix area, costing the state an estimated $100 million, and the NBA informed the Phoenix Suns that they wouldn’t be considered to host the All-Star Game. By the time Arizona voters finally capitulated and approved a ballot initiative creating a holiday in 1992, convention business in the Phoenix area alone had suffered a nearly $200 million setback.

Now, Arizona seems intent on committing financial suicide once again — this time, over the issue of illegal immigration. After a couple of decades of looking the other way as illegal immigrants swung hammers, tended landscaping, made beds and otherwise helped build cities like Phoenix, the Zonies told their immigrant workers to pound sand by passing a tough law that sought to combat illegal immigration by legalizing the practice of racial and ethnic profiling.

Municipalities, organizations, corporations, elected officials, individuals and even some foreign countries were aghast at the idea that Latinos might have to carry their birth certificates with them while Anglos went on with their lives undisturbed. So they let it be known they wouldn’t be spending money in the state. Conventions, concerts and corporate outings were canceled. There is even a campaign by activists to pressure Major League Baseball to move next summer’s All-Star Game out of Phoenix.

Researchers have begun to assess the damage thus far and they’ve learned that a man-made disaster can be just as devastating as a natural one. According to a recent report by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, the immigration law has cost the state as much as $141 million in lost convention business since Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed the measure in April. With a sour economy, spiraling debt, failing schools and a host of other problems facing the Grand Canyon State, Brewer succeeded in changing the subject long enough to win the gubernatorial election but essentially stuck the state with the tab.

The news for Arizona isn’t totally bad. According to The Associated Press, tourism to the Grand Canyon is up and so is the occupancy in the state’s hotels and resorts overall.

Still, Arizona’s convention industry has sustained a blow. In just the first four months after the law was signed, hotels lost an estimated $45 million. The local economies lost as much as $96 million, the study said. The canceled meetings and conferences could wind up costing the state nearly 2,800 jobs, $87 million in lost wages, and more than $250 million in lost economic output over the next few years.

That is a lot of red ink, given that a federal judge struck down the most harmful elements of the law in July. Arizona appealed the decision, and it is now awaiting a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

None of this will come as a surprise to the folks in the Arizona business community — including many Republicans — who have been quietly plotting to repeal the law because, as some of them told me during a recent visit to Phoenix, it has hurt the Arizona brand, made it more difficult to find workers, and discouraged outside companies from investing in the state.

Nor does it surprise my friend, Javier Palomarez, an alumnus of various Fortune 100 companies who heads the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. While neither Palomarez nor the organization the boycott, it’s clear that he thinks lawmakers made a costly mistake by letting their emotions prevail.

“This kind of legislation doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” he told me. “It comes with real-life consequences.”

Palomarez said his organization — which advocates free trade, increased commerce and business development — is “puzzled and outraged” that Arizona’s leaders didn’t think through their actions more carefully. He also believes this should be a cautionary tale for the lawmakers in more than 20 states who want to follow Arizona off a cliff by likewise roping local police into enforcing federal immigration law.

It’s a bad idea. And, when all is said and done, a very expensive one.

Ruben Navarrette’s e-mail address is: ruben@rubennavarrette.com.

John Hickenlooper spoke Tuesday at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Colorado Springs. Photo by STEVE POPE, The Gazette