Let me get this straight: The mayor’s husband yelled at a School Committee member in Stop & Shop, and now we’re comparing it to white supremacy and settler colonialism?
I live in Northampton. I disagree with the mayor on a few issues, including the school budget, and I didn’t vote for her reelection. But watching School Committee member Michael Stein transform a grocery store confrontation into a dissertation on systemic oppression and the “civilizing work of white supremacy” on his Michael Stein for Ward 4 School Committee page is something special. It takes real talent to turn “Mayors husband shouts at me near the frozen food isle” into “I am the vanguard of resistance against neoliberal austerity.”
Yes, Bill Scher was wrong. He should have only been there to stop and shop, not stop, shop, and shout. He apologized, his wife apologized, and it should have ended there. Instead, we got a Facebook manifesto from Stein complete with references to Hillary’s “deplorables” and the ethical inversions of civilization itself. All because someone yelled at him in public.
Here’s where this really gets under my skin: Anyone who has spent five minutes watching School Committee meetings knows that civility and Stein go together like kale and donuts. The man has perfected the art of the sanctimonious takedown. He lectures and treats anyone who disagrees with him like they’re morally deficient. But sure, let’s talk about how he’s the victim of incivility.
The real story here isn’t about neoliberalism versus democratic socialism. It’s not a microcosm of national trends. It’s about a School Committee member who dishes it out constantly suddenly discovering that being on the receiving end feels bad.
I’m sure whatever Bill Scher said to Stein in that grocery store is no worse than what Stein has said about Mayor Sciarra over the past two years. But pointing that out would require self-awareness, and self-awareness doesn’t fit neatly into a narrative about civilization being built on barbarism.
Everyone involved should take a breath. Bill Scher made a mistake and apologized. Mayor Sciarra apologized. Now maybe Michael Stein could recognize that being hectored in public is unpleasant, and apply that realization to his own conduct at School Committee meetings. Or we could keep pretending that a grocery store argument is symptomatic of fractures in the Democratic Party that will define our political future.
Gregg Schwartz lives in Northampton.