Hello, I am Danielle, feminist, proletarian, critiquist, queer and I am here to praise Mickey.
To me the left today is a network of closed shops- the hard left an exclusive club. The left I remember was diverse, multi-racial, multi-cultural and Mickey was one of it’s genial hosts and I thank him for changing my comfort zone. The movement was many diverse persons and populations in action around similar issues and the fun was recognizing, welcoming, stretching, growing, and uniting with possibility.
NYU Uptown was deli owners kids- first generation to college- 150 varieties of Zionist youth- not demonstrators but I got brought to the movement there by Lee who gave me my first leaflet- a brilliant tract on Why We Demand Open Admissions. He got me through my first meetings by defending me from the boys whose idea of welcome was to attack my ” small town girl goes to the big city” hair and clothes. He literally held my hand through my first demonstration as we gathered anti-war demonstrators beneath red flags for a march on the Justice Department for Bobby Seale and then he stuck us all covered in tear gas in the back of a UHaul trailer and I never spoke to him again but I was hooked, in, in and looking.
There was no joy the day I realized that despite my efforts to find a niche in feminism I was going to be stuck with Mickey, Lee, Dennis and Phil. Afeni Shakur, newly released from jail tried to persuade the women of our printing collective to overlook the obnoxious behavior of the Panther liaison who demeaned the women with language like chick and broad. Mickey, as usual one minute brilliant, next minute incoherent tried to move us back to unity around our broader struggle for justice while the women devolved- self-centered, inflexible, out of touch, out of proportion, ridiculous. I walked away with the men but I was not happy.
It was difficult to be a feminist in the early RU. (Revolutionary Union) Red Papers the Woman Question might have been charming a few years earlier or even a few years later but released at the height of the construction and debate of feminist theory it was an embarassment. No male leader had a worse reputation for tacky male chauvinism than our Bob. Most of the national females came with marriage not the movement. But NY was different- We had so many strong women from so many NY groupings.
It was difficult being a feminist in the radical feminist movement if you were more politician than theoretician, more propagandist than artist- It was hell to be a feminist in the mainstream women’s movement if you were more an activist than a lobbyist; a rabble rouser not a role model. And if you were class conscious, anti-racist and anti-imperialist it was difficult to even dialogue with this group.
So we had the white, straight appearing. kickass, movement leading women in our sphere- Marta, Chris, Both Lauras, Paige, Susan, Judy, Amy, and Terry partly because there was nowhere else to go and partly because Mickey was not going to let them go nowhere we united with women of experience and respect whose consciousness had been raised. Yet soon, for many years, we were a socially conservative woman stifling anachronism.
It is not my fault but I played my part and I have an apology. Mickey and I were elected chairs of the Bronx collective and I do not remember that we ever met. We both retreated to some comfort zone that used our mates to intercede-interface-run interference. I knew Mickey’s strengths but he annoyed the hell out of me for stupid reasons like the small town family value that intoxication should be closeted and filled with shame not indulged. So I did not even rise to my own usual level of hyper -responsibility. I held my breath while I waited for my women’s collective. Familiar, In alcohol and drug counseling we talk about the hundreds of irrelevant decisions that lead to relapse; the hundreds of irrelevant actions that lead to disaster.
Mickey was the mentor I needed to succeed in my dreams to organize women into labor unions. Watching my family outwit the local democratic party and get smashed by the local labor movement gave me a little working class experience and a lot of passion but not the political skill or stamina I needed for this fight. I sabotaged my own dream when I stopped real community building; when I forgot to unite with all who can be united.
Do I minimize? The male chauvinism was deep and sophisticated and Mickey was a part of it but the response- yeah do you remember a response equal to the talent of any of the women in the organization? Mickey did need a push out of his comfort zone- I could have started it. Both of us smart, determined and socially retarded- could we model democracy and diversity from a partnership? maybe, no one else did, certainly not the feminist movement, but we didn’t, we did not really try and I grieve it all.
Good bye, Mickey- GIve a Shout out to Marta and Leibel and Eddie and Beverly! Forgive me International Working Class! All Power to the People Who Love the People and Fight the Real Enemy!
Violets in the Grass 