by Kathleen Iselin
What is truth? With the reporting help of a fellow witness, I shall expose a sample of the kind of cynical deception the 99% routinely accept as being news.
To aid my expose’, first, in stark contrast to today’s “media”, the following is a true, accurate, honest account of what happened in Lyndon, VT on Sat. June 10, 2023:
We, a group of five Christians, gathered on the sidewalk in front of the Cobleigh Library with signs displaying quotes from the Bible, for traffic to see while passing by. It’s something we usually do anyway on weekends. This time, the only difference was that we chose the library-front sidewalk location to display our Biblical signage, because a 10 AM-12 PM poetry reading, part of “Pride Month”, was taking place in that building. Although having nothing against particular people involved, we do disapprove of Pride Month, because “Pride” forms a portion of the current multiple, multi-faceted attacks upon the traditional family. Yes, family. We consider it to be the basic defining unit of a free, decent society. Already, bizarre, absurd and maiming distortions of that time-honored unit are being used in a vast war on children to rob the young ones eventually away from every parent. That’s why we stood on the sidewalk quietly for two hours, the least we or any Christian could do, occasionally talking in low tones amongst ourselves or with the very sparse passers-by, not raising our voices at any time. We neither attended the reading, entered the library, nor generated the slightest noise or disruption.
Around 11:30 the great event seemed to have ended early, as a couple of people did come out from the library. One of them verbally snapped at us as she passed, while we remained silent the whole time. Then the poet leading the event, Toussaint St Negritude, came out from a side door of the building. I personally know Toussaint, a very fine artist, and have always tried to be protective of him. At this time I was excited at the prospect of offering him a new high-quality King James Bible within which I had placed a copy of the 8-page “left behind” letter I’d written to my family, and a tract or two about how to be saved through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. I approached him, stopping 20 feet away as I noticed he was busy in conversation with a woman there. As the two of them turned back toward the library side door, I was filled with amazing love, beautiful love. I called to Toussaint, offering him the Bible, then gently turned around and walked away, with the same love in my heart. Toussaint had replied, “No thanks”, to the bible.
A few days later, I mailed that bible with its inserted contents to a woman in her 40’s that I had known when she was a child, who long ago had gone into decades of severe drug addiction (during which time I lost track of her), but who is now a devout Christian, and is on fire for the Lord!
I keep entire constellations of fellow human beings in my soul, and one time years ago on the road I had put myself in considerable life-danger by rather ineffectually trying to keep a State Policeman from profiling Toussaint, who is dark-skinned.
But let’s get back to June 10th, 2023. Soon after the library demonstration, I quite coincidentally visited the thrift store, at around the same time Toussaint did. So we encountered each other there, and this was once more at the door of the building. Again, although surprised, I was very friendly, but Toussaint, taking offense at seeing me so soon this time, stringently demanded, repeating twice that I “keep far, far, away” from him. I gently responded, “OK, I’m not going to be pushy.”, and continued into the store.
The shocking thing is that based merely on the above events, by June 16th-17th, the Vermont Digger, and then after that non-local channels around the country, had terrorized internet and radio with a fabricated story evoking images of a mob (rather like the one in Sodom wanting to rape Lot’s friends), screamingly taunting Toussaint to come out of the library so that he could be lynched and shot with a gun.
To compare with the truth, now read, in part, the original infamous article about June 10th which was a spark kindling a firestorm of falseness. (Such firestorms are a phenomenon that has become so typical of our times they are obligatory. Media-mandated.) We quote, here in the following paragraphs, the “spark” June 15 Caledonian Record article which, with others, prompted special statements from Sanders, Welch and Balint denouncing Christians.
6/15 Caledonian Record article (the paper did publish a retraction of below article on June 20, but not before its original false story had spread across the nation):
“PROTESTERS DISRUPT LGBTQ+ EVENT AT LIBRARY” :
“Toussaint St. Negritude has been a poet exploring LGBTQ+ themes for approximately 40 years.
He never felt threatened, he said. Until now.
[The] event led by St. Negritude…halted midway through because a group gathered in front of the library…and called out St. Negritude by name…one of the librarians came upstairs and let us know these people were outside, that it appeared to be threatening, and they were closing the library,” St. Negritude said. Three attendees, who were white, left through the front door without incident while St. Negritude, who is black, was escorted by library staff out a side door.
There, he was confronted by a lone woman.
“They knew me because my name and my face were on the flyer. They were waiting for me,” he said. “The librarians felt it was too dangerous for me to leave through the front door. So they tried to escort me out the side door. …that’s when this protester started running towards me. With some hateful biblical sign.”
The woman shouted his name and had her hand in a bag. He feared it might be a gun… “Which completely freaked me out,” he said. “So the librarian and I ran back into the library. We waited for five or so minutes and went back out. The person was gone, and the librarian drove me to my car.”
Shaken, St. Negritude set off …He stopped in a Lyndon thrift shop… He said he was confronted again by the same lone woman.
“As I’m leaving the store, this same protester … had apparently followed me to the thrift store. Which definitely raised it up a notch,” he said. “I had to scream and yell at her, to get her to step away from me. Then I got in my car and left.”
Having spent most of the last 14 years in the Northeast Kingdom, St. Negritude has experienced discrimination in day-to-day life, most of it race-based.
“This is not something that I’m experiencing in Mississippi or Alabama or Texas. It’s something I’m experiencing here in Vermont,” he said.
St. Negritude, 63, said a community response was necessary to nip the problem in the bud.
“I don’t think these people are going to stop until they are stopped,” he said. “I don’t want to be the next murdered person. It’s absolutely frightening to have to say that.”
“There needs to be very direct, aggressive action,” he said. “Part of that will be holding these people accountable and being very public about ..‘This is it, this will not be tolerated any longer.’”
So there it is: In a fabrication-binge of media extremism, the Caledonian paper singles out and libels us five deeply hateful people for our gigantically quiet riot of insurrection against the wonderful “tolerance” mentioned at the very end of their hit-piece. Out of the five people, it most especially singles out me, Kathleen Iselin.
I have, in the fantasies of the media-demented public, now become a murder-minded racist stalker: a “LONE GUNWOMAN !!”. For, yes: the bible I lovingly offered to the poet Toussaint St Negritude, has been transformed by his real or his feigned fears, with the aid of journalistic tabloid enchantments, into an imagined gun! If only, instead, the glorious light of the gospel might bathe hearts, with many seeking Jesus, finding Him, and being saved.
This event and the lies that have been told about it, are a serious matter, but also an invitation for people to come together, hard as it may seem. To really grapple, in love, with world events while humbling ourselves, working together toward the truth, both/all sides, rather than continuing to worship self in that worst sin, PRIDE. (See the prophetic words of Ezekiel 16:49, 2 Timothy chapter 3 ; also Romans 1:16-32 that, like much in the bible, foresee our times KJV)
One cannot have real love or truth without God/Jesus. The shoe won’t fit.
The author is a longtime resident of the Northeast Kingdom.
Categories: Commentary
Thank you for sharing your side of the situation. One thing that did jump out to me is this section:
“A few days later, I mailed that bible with its inserted contents to a woman in her 40’s that I had known when she was a child, who long ago had gone into decades of severe drug addiction (during which time I lost track of her), but who is now a devout Christian, and is on fire for the Lord!”
Besides the fact that you didn’t capitalize the name of the book you base your life on, you haven’t had contact with this woman until she turned her life around. You could have used your christian values and that book when she was down and needed words of encouragement most.
Think of all the people you have known through the decades who you have little or no contact with now. Some have moved away, changed jobs, changed life circumstances. Or maybe your own life circumstances changed. Are you personally responsible for the wellbeing of every one of them, forever? Is it realistic to expect that Kathy is responsible for every single person she has ever known?
Tami Furry, please read the section you copied and pasted, again. You missed a significant and pivotal clue… she couldn’t have “used your christian values and that book when she was down and needed words of encouragement most.” because she had lost track of her for decades.
Turning attention to the actions of the media, Mr. St. Negritude, and his supporters. They suffer distinct weakness in their character and fortitude. Why are they in fear? Who do they fear? What are they in fear of happening to them? Is it justified fear or simply playing out the agenda of propaganda fueling their actions? Who is the father of all lies?
John 15:18-25 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’[a] If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. 24 If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. 25 But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’[b]
Thank you Kathleen and your friends for courageously standing up peacefully standing up for the truth that can be found in the Bible. Where was the rest of the town members? Shame on the media and artist for lying about what happened and trying to divide your community. By faith they will start reading their Bible daily. A verse a day will show the way and maybe all will be encouraged by the letters in red, spoken by Jesus Christ. The lesson at the well for all of us … “Go and sin no more.”
I met Kathleen Iselin last summer while engaging in my own first amendment rights to publicly and peacefully demonstrate at the Vermont state house in Montpelier.
She was one of the few Vermonters to actually engage with me in a responsible and respectful manner that day. Most Vermonters, once faced with the truth and unconscionable crimes against children for which they are ultimately complicit, or culpable, will only avert their eyes to the sidewalk pavement. At other times, Vermonters will shout from the self-righteous anonymity of their automobile windows, hurling curses and insults and threatening admonitions to leave Vermont.
Kathleen was not only genuinely and authentically interested, but also polite, respectful and engaging. She had arrived in Montpelier for a local event and spent so much time learning about why I was there, her event had completed.
As she herself explained during our statehouse conversation, you as an attorney, Mr. Klar may find it curious to learn that she was once a law student herself. During her law school education, she became aware that she could no longer continue on a career of law as it was inherently unethical and dehumanizing.
If there were more, consciously aware, genuinely caring and responsibly functioning human beings in Vermont like Kathleen Iselin, this world would be a better place.