Harriett Bradlin Mitchnick — 1930 - 2007

My dear friend and advisor Harriet Mitchnick died this week at the age of 77. She was also the grandmother of my son, Alexis. I was not at all sure if this was the place to post a short tribute to her, and then decided that, yes, it was a perfect place.
Harriett was a genuine revolutionary. I’ve not known many people I can say that about. Writing about her on a site such as Cyrano’s, in the Placebo Art section, actually seemed a fitting location to say a few things about this rather remarkable woman. She was born in Detroit in 1930, the daughter of Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine. She was born into radicalism in a sense, on her maternal side. She married young to a man she had little in common with, dropped out of school (I believe she was sixteen) and had four daughters. At twenty seven she met Marty Mitchnick, her future husband at a leftist meeting at which he was speaking. Her life changed forever. She married Martin Mitchnick and gave birth to another four daughters. She started communes with him and worked as an activist in one form or another until the end.
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This is the skeletal structure of her life, but it fails to capture at all the deep influence Harriett had on so many people. She was a born activist, and never tired of talking about the things that mattered to her. She had absolute conviction in the struggle for socialism, and for human dignity. People listened when she spoke, for she spoke with authority, and with sincerity. She was *never* selling anything to you, she was trying to reach you, to touch something of basic human decency she believed was inside everyone. Her acceptance of people was profound. Her tolerance bottomless, and the only thing I really saw her ever get angry about was puritanism. She believed in Wilhem Reich, in Karl Marx, and in Yiddish jokes. She hated pettiness and distrusted anyone not capable of suffering. She had a crush on both John Garfield and Sterling Hayden, for fifty years, and loved film noir. She also loved and supported theatre and was a great source of support for me during often troubling times.
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Her own life had many tribulations, and she herself had a fair share of blind spots … but only about herself. She was magical with children, and with all manner of wayward young men. I cant count the number of young men who stayed at Harriett’s house, ate her great cooking (and everyone was always welcome to dinner, always, without exception) and listened to her lecture on bourgeois economics or Rosa Luxembourg. She knew the Communist Manifesto by heart I think. Once a young man we all knew had stolen her purse and used her credit cards (it’s still a wonder to me that Harriett even had credit cards) and was arrested. She told the police, yes, he had taken the money and credit cards. He had a long record and was sent back to jail. When he got out (something like six years later) she offered him a room for free. I asked her, ‘Harriett, aren’t you afraid he might steal again?’ She said, ‘Oh, I hope not, he would feel so bad about himself then.’
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She was an advocate of natural child birth, and of home birthing. She counseled countless young mothers on breast feeding and child care. She once said her philosophy of child rearing was “benign neglect”. She thought parents should be prevented from turning their kids into drones of the authoritarian system she hated. Children will learn and find wisdom if you just get out of their way … this was a core belief for Harriett. She had an essentially Hebraic dark world view, a Job-ian sense of fatalism, but continued to struggle until the end. A friend once said, ‘Harriett should be teaching at Universities’. I remember thinking, that yes, in a sane world, as many people as possible should be exposed to her extemporaneous lectures, but then I reflected on institutional learning and thought, well, such places are exactly what she is fighting against.
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She provided a enormous amount of advice to me, and I always trusted her opinion. If I disagreed, and I did on occasion, I knew I had better have good reason. She helped a lot of people, and inspired a lot of people. Somewhere I’m sure Harriett is helping young mothers with childbirth, lecturing on Marx, and cooking goulash.
R.I.P
John Steppling

About this entry

You’re currently reading “Harriett Bradlin Mitchnick — 1930 - 2007,” an entry on Cyrano’s Journal /•\ ||| Placebo ART

Published:
09.27.07 / 12pm
Category:
TRAVELS IN BOURGIEDOM