An interesting newcomer to anti-affirmalye-action ranks is the left-wing San Francisco bi-monthly Mother Jones (named for Mary Harris Jones, 1830- 1930, scourge of child labor and, as the masthead has it, "orator, union organizer, and hellraiser"). The editorial in the September/October issue is admirably blunt. "Affirmative action didn't cause America's fundamental racial problems," it declares, "slavery and segregation did. But affirmative action has eroded liberals' moral credibility as reformers and driven away many natural allies. . . . Support for affirmative action became a virtual mantra for liberals, even though it contradicted a widely held American belief that no racial or ethnic group deserved a mandated advantage in the marketplace, and even though the central beneficiaries -- middle-class blacks -- commanded a limited political base."
This salutary, not to say astonishing, development leaves the Nation virtually alone among prominent American opinion magazines still decrying the retreat from state-proffered racial preferences as "staggering" and "ominous." The Nation -- and all the mainstream press.