Comedian and frequent Trump fan impersonator Walter Masterson was back at it in Long Island, New York, getting into character once again to take his act to a school board meeting to give a satirical rant on the topic of critical race theory.
This subject has become a frequent one at these meetings across the country thanks to right-wing figures stirring up hysteria over it, claiming that critical race theory, taught in some graduate school programs, is being taught to young children in public schools.
Masterson demonstrated how ridiculous this is with his comments to the Smithtown board of education.
“The left would have us think that it’s a bunch of racist white people that tore down Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that it was the governor working with the police that caused the Tulsa massacre,” he said. “But you want to know what destroyed Black Wall Street? Socialism.”
There was some hesitation from the crowd after Masterson made this clearly ridiculous statement, but then the conservatives in the crowd clapped in apparent agreement.
The video skips forward to show the comedian telling the story of his niece being taught critical race theory in school, but to the dismay of the right-wing meeting attendees, there’s a little surprise near the end of the tale.
“So my niece comes home from school and tells us that she learned that George Washington owned slaves,” he says. “Now tell me, does that sound like an appropriate subject for a second-year law school student?”
“I’m not a legal expert, but I thought the point of law school was to study the Constitution. So I told my niece, I said, ‘listen, yes, he owned slaves, but he also discovered the Declaration of Independence.”
This, of course, is not true, as the Declaration of Independence was not “discovered” but was written by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston, then edited by Congress before being adopted in 1776. George Washington was not involved, but this was not even close to the most outrageous claim Masterson made as the right-wingers who clapped for the “socialism destroyed Black Wall Street” thing become visibly uncomfortable in their seats.
“And in our family, we protect the Declaration of Independence, because we feel that it’s not just a piece of paper, alright, it’s a map that leads to a great treasure of Templar goal, and that’s why Nicolas Cage tried to steal it.”
Here, Masterson is referring to the 2004 film National Treasure in which Cage and a team of cohorts attempt to steal the original draft of the document because he’s convinced there’s a coded map to such a treasure on the back in a solidly mediocre adventure. In spite of this obvious reference, the conservative crowd still clapped when he asked them “who wants to protect the Constitution” by stealing it before the liberals do.
Probably the best part of the video, however, comes at the end, when a long and painful pause makes Masterson’s point better than words ever could.
“You know, a lot of people are saying that we’re racist just because we don’t want to teach Black history in our school system.”
The silence after this as Masterson pretends to search for a way to justify this desire aside from racism drags on for a full 15 seconds before one of the board members tries to encourage him. “It’ll come to you, don’t worry.”
It does not come to him, however, and his time runs out a few seconds later.
