Watch: White nationalist gets drowned out by boos at University of Florida speech
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WFLA) – Richard Spencer was drowned out by boos at his much-anticipated speech at the University of Florida Thursday.
Spencer, a white nationalist and advocate of free speech and state sovereignty couldn’t seem to get his ideologies across as the crowd chanted “Go home, Spencer!” and “Black Lives Matter.”
Spencer spent most of the speech criticizing his hecklers, calling them a disgrace and describing them as the problem with America-at one point calling for all white professors to be fired and for all white students to stop going to school.
Spencer repeatedly asked students to check out a speech he made in 2013, where he called for an ethnostate. At a press conference before the speech, Spencer made an argument for state sovereignty, at one point stating, “historically speaking, absolutely, this is a white country.” He added that “other people, who don’t look like me, who are non-Europeans, they already have their own sovereign states- what is the issue? Am I talking to preschoolers?” But he couldn’t seem to expand on those remarks during his speech on Thursday afternoon and instead engaged in testy exchanges with several students during a Q&A.
He did have time to call white people a “beautiful” race and remembered a white America before the country was “influenced by the 1965 immigration act,” when there were “50’s dinners” and “nice communities.” “We are strangers in our own land,” Spencer said.
When asked where he stands on the issue of “peaceful, ethnic cleansing,” Spencer shot down the notion he was in favor of the process, giving examples of “peaceful, ethnic redistribution” instead while citing “historical facts” about how countries like Poland and Yugoslavia came into being. He also noted that many different ethnic groups are redistributing as he spoke. That there were “millions of non-white Arabs and Africans flowing into Germany,” and “causing violence against mostly woman,” said Spencer. “But that is effectively peaceful redistribution of a population.”
Spencer addressed Alt-Right infighting over religious identity after one of his followers asked how they “solve an inter-religious conflict tearing the group apart.” That question was met with boos, making it difficult to hear Spencer’s answer, but Spencer clearly identified himself as a “tragic Atheist,” saying he does not believe in God, but he doesn’t “think the world is going to inherently become wonderful once we give up God. The death of God is a deeply tragic thing,” Spencer said.
Before Spencer wrapped up the speech, he was asked by a student, who identified herself as both Puerto Rican and Egyptian, how it felt to be punched in the face during Trump’s inauguration. “It hurt. Yeah, it hurts when someone punches you in the face,” Spencer said. “Do you all want to get your hands dirty? Are you really willing to do something like that? Or do you just want to shout self-righteousness?”
Spencer was joined on stage by Eli Mosley, CEO of Identity Europa. Mosley used the question to launch an attack on ANTIFA, a political movement of self-styled anti-fascist groups, which he blamed for punching Richard in the face. Mosley said watching an ANTIFA protester punch Richard in the face “changed my life, changed hundreds of white Americans lives. That punch, whatever hurt or pain it caused Richard, caused an awakening in people, a movement. The exact reason we are here today is because of that punch.”