My dad – who is almost completely recovered from last summer’s stroke – was Commander of his American Legion, he still cooks at Chicken Tuesdays, Fish Fridays, and hangs out on college football Saturdays with his buddies. This would break his heart.
And how in the hell is sharing the beautiful story of how Memorial Day began during such a time of loss after the Civil War controversial? Except to fucking racists.
“I find it interesting that [the American Legion]…would take it upon themselves to censor my speech and deny me my First Amendment right to [freedom of] speech…This is not the same country I fought for.”
Retired Army Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter https://t.co/tLMG62634Q
— Connie Schultz (@ConnieSchultz) June 3, 2021
This is absolutely bizarre. But also…sadly, not surprising. Bravo to LTC (Ret) Kemter for pressing on through the bigotry. https://t.co/IsX0Fi4QVi
— Angry Staff Officer (@pptsapper) June 3, 2021
Vote Vets does the right thing:
We sound corrected the part of Lt. Col. (Ret.) Barnard Kemter’s speech that was muted when his mic was cut off this past Memorial Day in Hudson, Ohio. He spoke of freed slaves being among the first to honor the fallen after the Civil War. Please take a moment to listen. pic.twitter.com/gjidUZF6ci
— VoteVets (@votevets) June 3, 2021
The story:
HUDSON — What at first blush appeared to be a short audio malfunction at Monday’s Memorial Day ceremony in Markillie Cemetery turned out to be anything but.
A ceremony organizer turned off the microphone when the event’s keynote speaker, retired Army Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter, began sharing a story about freed Black slaves honoring deceased soldiers shortly after the end of the Civil War.
The microphone was turned down for about two minutes in the middle of Kemter’s 11-minute speech during the event hosted by the Hudson American Legion Lee-Bishop Post 464. (See the start of the speech at the 47-minute mark in the video embedded at the link)
They didn’t even try to deny it.
At a certain point in Kemter’s speech, Suchan said she asked A.J. Stokes, the event’s audio engineer, to turn off Kemter’s microphone. She said Stokes refused to do it himself, but pointed to the knob that controlled the microphone.
Stokes confirmed his refusal and that he did point to the knob. He said it was Garrison who turned down the audio and then turned it back up a short time later.
When reached by phone Wednesday, Garrison declined to say whether he turned down the microphone and said he had “nothing to add” regarding the situation.
Stokes said Suchan and Garrison were both “very adamant” about turning off Kemter’s microphone.
“That was very improper,” Stokes said. “I would’ve never done something like that.”
He said he was “very upset” about what happened and hoped he was not being blamed. Suchan emphasized that Stokes was “totally blameless.”
He noted he’s handled the sound engineering for the event since the late 1960s and has his own company, Stokes Sound & Video Inc.
After the ceremony, Stokes said he apologized to Kemter about the loss in audio, but also told him, “I had nothing to do with that. Cindy and Jim were the ones that turned your microphone off.”
When I was a military kid, as we traveled from base to base, and our neighbors reflected the diversity of the country, my dad often told me the story of how Bootcamp was the first time that “this 18 yr old New England boy” had spent time with POC and it changed his life. Even with a late-in-life Fox News infection, my dad is still adamant about equality and inclusivity. He’s even come around to celebrating several of my cousins who have married their partners and proudly hangs their wedding photos on the china hutch. For a sometimes cranky 84-year-old, he’s really still a liberal at heart, despite his protestations to the contrary.
I would be proud to meet retired Army Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter and join him at Chicken Tuesday, where the food is scary but the crowd at my table is rowdy.
Open thread
raven
Typical
AK
What the hell is that big as screen that blocks my view of this site on my mobile? No “x” to close. It has BalloonJuice headlines.
catclub
I thought it was all the liberals who imposed cancel culture on the right.
hoocodanode that racists practice it on history.
Ken
@catclub: It will be
satisfyinginterestingnauseating to see the gyrations from the RW as they try to explain why this “cancel” was OK.Oh, who am I kidding, they will just ignore it.
Mary G
What a great post. I am so ready to go back to shaming bigots. Retired Army Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter is a mensch. I’d be curious to know what the attendees thought of this.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Screw these people
Benw
If they’d just let him talk, no one would’ve thought twice about his remarks (which were very nice). Now they’re on the internet, forever. Well played, geniuses!
Omnes Omnibus
My grandfather who was eligible for both the VFW and the Legion had no interest in joining what he saw as a couple of right-wing organizations. I followed his example.
Mike in NC
Ironic that states like Ohio and Michigan and Wisconsin proudly raised dozens of regiments to fight in the Civil War, but today they’re dominated by neo-Confederate Republicans.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
That actually makes me a little misty, both the story AND the fact that some assholes were so threatened that they muted it.
Robmassing
We need a story about someone honoring the dead who committed treason in defense of slavery. For balance.
Bluegirlfromwyo
Tamara, my WWII vet FIL had a similar military experience to your dad wrt diversity. However, he would not be broken-hearted over the treatment of Lt. Col. Kemter. He’d be pissed off and ready to kick GQP ass like the New Deal Democrat he was.
Sloane Petersons knee therapist
The sanctified American Legion did not begin as a patriotic veterans organization.
Here’s a good history of WHY it was really formed: http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/legion.html
Jeffro
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
to your latter point: they’re that threatened by a story that paints Black people in a good light…enough to try and cut an 84-year-old’s microphone in the middle of his story. What did they think, everyone was going to leave that event and go on some sort of ‘Woke Jihad’?
Gin & Tonic
There’s an American Legion post nearby that has (reportedly) very good food. Some of my friends and co-workers go there periodically. I always assumed the AL was a bunch of old bigots, and decided not to support them.
Seems I was right.
Tim C
Jumping Jesus Christ on a Pogo-Stick, these people are dumb.
Seriously, part of the Republican playbook is supposed to be actively having speeches like these everywhere so that you can look a little less racist than their policies at least. I’m old enough to remember when modern Republicans would push the actions of Republicans in the 1860s as “proof” they aren’t actually racist (Odd that they have to go back so far to be not racist, but hey at least they were trying to have an argument.)
Al Z.
My daughter is entering the Army this month and I’m really concerned about how many RWNJs she’ll encounter. The Lt. Colonel (retired) gives me some hope but even one extremist is too many in the young officer corps. Someone please tell me I’m overreacting.
TaMara (HFG)
@Gin & Tonic: Kinda missing the point of my story…
TaMara (HFG)
@Al Z.: I think Adam is a good person to ask about this. Also soonergrunt if he’s around.
Kay
I love the childish petulance of it. “STOP talking about people who aren’t me! Me, me, MEEEEE!”
Just fucking unbearably self centered. Odds are there were decent people at that event who wanted to hear what he had to say, but that’s not permitted, nor did the censors even consider it. Me, me, me.
TaMara (HFG)
@Bluegirlfromwyo: In my dad’s younger days, the men who served under him called him “Mad Dog” – we try not to activate that personality. LOL
matt
Stories like this make it very clear that ‘we just disagree about politics’ isn’t really a tenable position.
matt
@Mike in NC: Michigan and Wisconsin because they’ve been taken over by right-wing tyrants who have rigged the states for GOP victories with minorities.
germy
SiubhanDuinne
@AK:
Didn’t know it was happening to anyone else. I took a screenshot of it and emailed it to WaterGirl.
bemused senior
@Bluegirlfromwyo: ditto! My dad was a WWII fighter pilot and Air force career officer who taught me to vote Democratic, support the civil rights movement, and never cross a picket line. He would have been appalled by the GQP recent antics but not surprised.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You got lot love the utter incompetence of these racists lousers; far from silencing Kemter they gave him a national platform. Then again these are the dimwitted heirs to vile line of thinking that damned the South to stangation and poverty for 150 years.
bemused senior
@AK: me too. I hate it.
Another Scott
@AK: If you’re on Android, try the Brave browser. It has a built-in ad blocker. It apparently exists in the iPhone app store as well (but I’ve only used the Android version).
As always, it helps to say what phone/computer you’re using, what browser, what operating system, when you have issues like these so Watergirl has specifics to give to the coders.
I hope this helps.
Cheers,
Scott.
Eunicecycle
@AK: I had that, too, but it’s gone now, thank God. Or thank Watergirl! I submitted a complaint because it was impossible to read the site. But I was sort of typing blind because it was covering the part where I was trying to type!
artem1s
They tried to get him to cut it out beforehand.
I read in another article that several of the attendees (who were encouraged to come closer when the loud speaker cut out) expressed gratitude in hearing about the history. No one knew at the time the mic malfunction was linked to the subject of the speech. The mic on the video camera picked up the whole thing. The perpetrators didn’t think they were doing something embarrassing and try to pass it off on equipment failure. Epic privilege fail.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Gin & Tonic:
I generally avoided the Legion posts around here because they seemed to have membership rolls that were overloaded with quartermaster types that were kinda “rah-rah” about a new generation of young men hearing the sounds of guns that they never got around to hearing personally. Lots of “post-Korea, pre-Vietnam” sergeants who served in Germany and Italy and post-occupation Japan and S Korea, and they appear to be aging out of all relevance to the broader public in this city, anyway. Posts are dumping property here, and the younger vets are staying away. With the collapse of the BSA that they did a lot of the flag-wavy, rah-rah shit, I think it is pretty well permanent.
The VFW guys were always different and more circumspect.
West of the Cascades
@Tim C: You exaggerate — they only have to go back as far as 1875.
Delk
Paging Miss Streisand.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@TaMara (HFG):
I think every area is different in terms of the people drawn to the Legion, and it would also depend on political/ethnic demographics, not to mention what all else is available for social engagement.
Sloane Ranger
@AK: I was getting that too!
Android phone, Google Crome browser.
As for the story – unbelievable – except it happened. Glad I heard someone clapping during the time the General’s mike was off.
FridayNext
@germy:
The history of the Civil War has been written by the victors. The victors were the white supremacists.
Baud
Critical race theory!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@bemused senior:
I once got stuck in some lawsuit by a former post office supervisor who got into a fight with one of his package handlers. I don’t remember many details, but I do remember taking the handler’s depo, and he talked about being a marine, looking after his squad, how his union was just like that and how he was a proud Democrat. I secretly liked him a lot more than my own client (who deserved a little physical correction as I recall).
TaMara (HFG)
Okay, for the people who did not bother to read the article. It was TWO people who did this, not the entire Legion, many protested, and even more, who could hear the story, thanked the LC. ?♀️
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: Marxism!
dlwchico
If you google the name of that lady that told him to cut the mic you can find her FB page and if you scroll through the nearly 1000 comments there you can find one that is supposedly some screenshots of her son’s FB page and it looks like he’s a big white power nazi guy. If that is all real, it’s not surprising she had the mic cut.
James E Powell
@SiubhanDuinne:
It’s happening on my iPhone. It repeats continuously.
Steve in the ATL
@TaMara (HFG): we are extrapolating and condemning the entire human race based on this one action by these two people. Is that wrong?
TaMara (HFG)
@Steve in the ATL: For commenters here? No, we call that any day that ends in Y
Baud
@TaMara (HFG):
The right built a whole “cancel culture” meme based on Mr. Patato Head and Dr. Suess. Let us have our fun.
Andrew
@Al Z.: The problem is everywhere in the services, but seems to be the worst in the Corps and, at the officer level, the Air Force. I think your daughter will be okay, but she would need to stay vigilant.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@dlwchico: One relatively early commenter on that page predicted that her friends list would reveal at least one out and open white supremacist. That it was her son is unsurprising.
rikyrah
Was furious when I read this story. The people who created Memorial Day aren’t relevant to a Memorial Day celebration?
Phuck outta here!
Ken
The judges would also have accepted “The Aristocrats!”
raven
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: And just show do you know all this?
Omnes Omnibus
@TaMara (HFG): Everyone’s experience of the American Legion is not the same as yours.
Cmorenc
@Robmassing:
I am not a civil war buff, but recently i was making a trip to wilmington, nc, and since my route just happened to go within a couple of miles of the battle of bentonville, nc, the very last large-scale union-confederate battle if the civil war in mid-march 1865 (petersburg had already fallen), i made the detour and spent an hour there.. The battle was a last-ditch effort by the rebs to stop sherman’s advance through nc, Although there are some scattered modern farmhouses and paved rural roads around the sprawling area where the battle was fought, nevertheless the area still looks remarkably unchanged from how it was back in 1865.
One particular location where confederates charged across a thousand-foot wide open field trying to attack the union line in the woods on the opposite side is especially poignant, because you cant help being astonished that at a time when the war was so obviously a lost cause the confederate generals could still induce so many men to make such a suicidal high-casualty charge. That confederate military leaders would gruesomely sacrifice so many of their men, and get them to knowingly go along in so obviously hopelessly lost cause at that point (which would also at that point needlessly kill or maim so many union soldiers) is a poignant tragedy, even though the confederates (as losers in the war) were indeed traitors to the united states.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@raven:
I went to things and I’m not bad at keeping my ears open and reading the room.
Like I said, every community is different.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Cmorenc:
That reminds me of orders given by British commanders to British, Canadian and American units to mount mass charges in the hours before 11 AM on Armistice Day, even though the lines had already been set. Paraphrasing one account where one was asked “why”, the response was “to show we were willing”. It was a stupid waste of lives. As I recall, Congress tried to initiate an inquiry, which fizzled.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: in 1995, I attended a wedding in a small town in Ontario, about 200 miles north of Toronto. The reception was held at the only facility in town, which was the Canadian version of AL/VFW/whatever. My impressions of the AL/VFW/whatever are based entirely on my experience one night, almost 30 years ago, in rural Canada. I think that’s reasonable.
NB: I may be an idiot.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: May be?
Belafon
Soprano2
They just hate it when the contributions of anyone who isn’t like them are acknowledged. Just HATE it.
Soprano2
I’m getting it too, both on my Android phone with Chrome browser and using Chrome on my work computer, which has a major firewall and blocks a lot of ads without me having to do anything. On my work computer it’s small but I cannot get rid of it.
Tim C
@West of the Cascades: Fair point!
catclub
@Steve in the ATL:
No thats New Brunswick. I think the default idiots in Canada are Newfies.
lee
@Benw: Apparently they are unaware of the internet.
@Omnes Omnibus:One of the interesting stories I’ve read is the conflict between the newest veterans and the old timers at the American Legion and VFWs. The younger generation is much more tolerant of gays and they old timers are getting butt-hurt about it.
WaterGirl
@AK: @bemused senior: @Sloane Ranger: @James E Powell: @Soprano2:
That was a temporary location so we could see what the ad itself would look like. It was gone from there within minutes.
The best description of it on phones when it was pasted into the corner of the screen was “that blows on mobile”.
I am writing up a post to explain where we are with the ads.
catclub
@lee: :
Only thing I remember {third hand anecdata} is that the most likely group to spit on/insult returning Vietnam vets back in the day were VFW/Legion old guys. Losers.
WaterGirl
@Eunicecycle: You did good. Three of you guys filled out the form, and Subaru Diane sent email. I get double-chimes on my WaterGirl email, so when I got 8 chimes right in a row, I knew something was up and immediately checked my BJ email, even though I was in a phone meeting.
It was gone within one minute. :-) So kudos to all who let me know ASAP.
Kent
It’s always been like that. In the 60s and 70s it was the same conflict between the older WW2 and younger Vietnam vets.
Just One More Canuck
@Steve in the ATL: Canadian icon Stompin Tom Connors sang about that in Sudbury Saturday Night, that includes the classic lyrics, “the girls are out to bingo and the boys are gettin’ stinko”
Ruckus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I think it’s always been like that between the VFW and the AL.
BruceFromOhio
Chickenshit wouldn’t even own what she did. Too bad, Cindy girl, you not only own it, you are now almost-famous for it. The redeeming qualities to come out of this chickenshit racist moment are that more people than ever are now aware of black folk honoring the fallen after the Civil War, and Cindy probably won’t be in charge of anything next year.
Even the mayor and the town council got some licks in.
Mel
@Bluegirlfromwyo: My grandfather was a Marine who served in the South Pacific on The Lindenwald. He was the kindest man I have ever known, and broke with his Quaker upbringing to enlist. He had a lifelong struggle afterwards with what we now know to be PTSD. He spent time assisting medics who ferried wounded soldiers on to the Lindenwald for transport, and saw a lot of terrible, heartbreaking things both on ship during combat and off ship, moving soldiers and supplies.
He told me that the hardest experiences were listening to soldiers’ dying wishes (tell their children they loved them; make sure that their mother got the letter in their pocket, etc., ) but that it was also heart-wrenching to know that likely every enemy soldier who died had their own little boy or girl, beloved parents, a sweetheart or a wife at home whose lives would be torn asunder by the loss. He was on the deck when the Lindenwald shot down a Japanese suicide plane which hit one of the masts and crashed into the water just 500 feet from the ship. He and several other sailors were close enough that they got a glimpse of the pilot, and that image haunted my grandpa’s dreams.
He always hoped to travel to Japan and back to the South Pacific to try to get closure, but a heart attack took him before he got the chance.
He would be horrified but not surprised by this. He quit going to the local VFW some years before he died b/c of how the staff treated his friends who were Black veterans (slow service, racist “jokes”, etc.).
J R in WV
@lee:
If your butt hurts after, you’re doing it all wrong! Write Dan Savage for advice to keep your butt from hurting so much!!!