Last week, a Long Island teacher at Connetquot High School was forced to remove a Progress Pride flag from her classroom, the school district citing a new rule that banned teachers from engaging in political speech.
New York actor and comedian Walter Masterson, known for trolling right-wing extremists as well as for his Starz Digital Media YouTube show Llama Cop, donned his finest American flag and took the podium at Connetquot's school board meeting to address some 'disturbing' issues.
His video, which is posted on YouTube and Twitter, perfectly captioned his speech:
"Connetquot, Long Island"
"The school erupted when they forced a teacher to remove the pride flag from her classroom."
"One of the students felt uncomfortable having a pride flag and the moms for liberty and loud majority got involved."
"The school forced the teacher to remove the pride flag."
"The good news is that the students were not having it."
You can watch his edited video below.
\u201cI trolled the school board meeting at Connetquot after they had a teacher remove the Progress Pride flag.\u201d— Walter Masterson (@Walter Masterson) 1665673067
He began his speech:
"I'm here today because a second grade teacher thought it was appropriate to teach my child about pronouns. Pronouns."
Some of the students in the audience began to chuckle.
Masterson continued:
"I was taught that there are only two pronouns. But thanks to the woke left, there are now 100 pronouns."
"I confronted the teacher, and I said that in our house there are only two pronouns and that they need to respect our beliefs."
"As a patriot, I love freedom of speech."
He then asked the audience:
"Who loves freedom of speech?"
Many attendees, not including students, applauded loudly.
Masterson went on:
"I love freedom of speech except when it comes to pride flags in schools, teaching history..."
"There's a whole list of books I want to ban from the school library. I want to ban kneeling at football games."
Masterson continued—with seemingly only students realizing he was trolling the meeting—to discuss how the school should be protecting its students with cops patrolling the hallway, by hiring cops as teachers and by having students who are cops "like in 21 Jump Street."
Masterson finished:
"We need to get back to the fundamentals, you know."
"We need to take down the pride flag, put the American flag back up, and we need to like force every child to salute it in the morning. Right?"
While students hid their faces to hide their laughter, Masterson was met with loud cheering from adults.
Twitter found it both hilarious and alarming many of the attendees had no idea they were being trolled.
\u201c@waltermasterson I like how the kids were laughing at it, but the MAGA adults were clapping and nodding their heads. \ud83d\ude02\n\nThe kids are all right.\u201d— Walter Masterson (@Walter Masterson) 1665673067
\u201c@olivesaidso @waltermasterson I've noticed a trend when looking at photographs of political rallies this year: Republican crowds are virtually *all* Boomers and Gen-Xers, while [progressive] Democratic crowds are of all ages, with Gen-Z standing out.\n\nThe kids are more than all right.\n\nhttps://t.co/Rb5clh4OJO\u201d— Walter Masterson (@Walter Masterson) 1665673067
\u201c@waltermasterson Unfortunately, you didn\u2019t troll hard enough\u2014although that\u2019s getting pretty difficult to do. While a few may have gotten it, it seemed many thought you were serious and agreed. \ud83d\ude15\u201d— Walter Masterson (@Walter Masterson) 1665673067
\u201c@waltermasterson I both loved and hated this. The satire was awesome and absolutely on point, but seeing the look/shock on some of the kids faces made me realize that they must have felt your words to some degree, because it\u2019s literally what real bigots keep saying to them on a regular basis.\u201d— Walter Masterson (@Walter Masterson) 1665673067
\u201c@waltermasterson It\u2019s so hard to tell whether the crowd responded because they got the joke or unwittingly agreed with the rhetoric.\u201d— Walter Masterson (@Walter Masterson) 1665673067
\u201c@sost64 @waltermasterson Guarantee 90% agreed with what he was saying.\u201d— Walter Masterson (@Walter Masterson) 1665673067
\u201c@waltermasterson Sorry, but its really fun to see how many were cheering your trolling thinking that you were actually saying what they wanted to hear! Good job! \ud83d\ude06\u201d— Walter Masterson (@Walter Masterson) 1665673067
\u201c@waltermasterson Quite terrifying that 70% of the folks in the audience didn't realize they were being trolled.\u201d— Walter Masterson (@Walter Masterson) 1665673067
\u201c@waltermasterson oh just shoot me now, they applauded you at the end. if it were because they were in on the joke, that would be one thing but I doubt that was the case.\u201d— Walter Masterson (@Walter Masterson) 1665673067
\u201c@waltermasterson It's scary. The majority agreed with you and didn't realize you were joking.\u201d— Walter Masterson (@Walter Masterson) 1665673067
\u201c@waltermasterson The kids understood. Unfortunately it flew right over the heads of most of the adults.\u201d— Walter Masterson (@Walter Masterson) 1665673067
\u201c@waltermasterson Most of the folks there\u2026\u201d— Walter Masterson (@Walter Masterson) 1665673067
In response to the district's decision to force the removal of the flag, Governor Kathy Hochul has ordered an investigation as a potential violation of New York's Human Right Laws.
A spokesperson for the governor's office shared:
"Gov. Hochul is committed to protecting the human rights of New Yorkers, and has directed the Division of Human Rights to investigate potential violations of Human Rights Law in this matter, consistent with the agency's mandate."
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