Richard Spencer at UF

Richard Spencer, the White nationalist who invented the term “alt-right” and a leader at the Charlottesville riot, spoke at the University of Florida (UF), home of the Gators. That was on October 19th 2017. The governor, fearing another Charlottesville, declared a state of emergency.

There were two arrests, no injuries, no deaths. There were hundreds of police. There were snipers and drones and helicopters. That part of campus was a ghost town. Hundreds of protesters showed up, but there were still plenty of empty seats in the auditorium where he spoke.

Unlike Charlottesville, the Klan was not out in force and protesters did not openly carry guns.

Protesters seemed intent on remaining peaceful, but any time Spencer spoke, they chanted over him, saying stuff like:

• Let’s go, Gators, let’s go!
• Go home, Spencer, go home!
• Alt-right, you cant hide, you support genocide.
• Say it loud, say it clear, immigrants are welcomed here.
• Black lives matter.
• Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye.

His supporters, numbering two dozen or so, sat in front and were quiet. Many were White men in white shirts, cultlike.

Spencer, instead of giving a speech, berated the (mostly White) protesters while they chanted over him. He said they were acting like children, that it was the most important free-speech event of their lives, that they did not want to think for themselves, that they were afraid of his ideas. He said he was a “dissident intellectual” and they were “shrieking and grunting morons.”

He seemed to view the University of Florida as a large, boorish football school where students were brainwashed by Marxist professors.

After berating them, he took questions. The protesters would quiet down to the hear the questions but would chant over his answers. But from their chants it was clear they heard what he was saying.

They asked questions like:

• Do you believe in a White ethno-state?
• Do you believe in ethnic cleansing?
• Don’t your ideas lead to violence, like at Charlottesville or under Hitler?
• How can you say Whites are superior when you are so ugly?
• What was it like to get punched (by Antifa)?
• What are you still doing here?

Spencer said the dominant US institutions hate White people and had taught Whites to hate themselves. Whites need a country of their own. Multiculturalism and the Immigration Act of 1965 were destroying the US. He seemed to yearn for the 1950s that his parents knew.

Hitler comparisons: From the questions, it was clear that Hitler had given White nationalism a bad name and that Spencer was unable to shake the Hitler comparisons. He denied he was a Nazi, but they did not buy it. He said he was for ethnic cleansing, but did not make clear how that would take place without force or violence.

The university allowed him to speak in the name of free speech, but allowed him to control who could attend, even choosing which media outlets could come.

– Abagond, 2017

Update: There was a shooting after the event by one of Spencer’s supporters, but no one got hurt. Tyler Eugene Tenbrink, the alleged shooter, came from Texas to see Spencer speak. LA Times.

Update (October 24th): The university’s bell tower played the Black National Anthem when Spencer was there.

See a

• Richard Spencer
• alt-right
• Antifa – who punched him
• Charlottesville riot
• the 1950s
• Hitler
  • and race
  • coming to power in a democracy

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