We haven’t yet run out of yarn, as Richard Spencer kicks off his white supremacy tour at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
At least one person was arrested — (an armed person with a press pass outside the venue).
It now seems to be a staple of every Spencer appearance for him to be asked during the Q & A how it felt to be punched in the head.
Spencer, who heads the National Policy Institute, a nationalist think tank, is scheduled to speak at 2:30 p.m. EDT (1830 GMT) at a campus performing arts center. The university said it did not invite him to speak, but was obligated by law to allow the event.
The school said it will spend more than $500,000 on security. The National Policy Institute is paying more than $10,000 to rent the facility and for security within the venue, according to the university.
www.reuters.com/...
“Given how ugly all of you guys are, why do you think white people are supreme?” the protester, whose face and identity weren’t revealed, asked.
“Are you actually looking at me right now?” Spencer asked.
“I do have eyes,” the protester responded.
Spencer then responded with a comment about the protester’s race and his own, saying he prefers “European beauty standards” and doesn’t find the protester’s “people” attractive either.
www.rawstory.com/…
It was Richard Spencer’s party, and he can cry if he wants to. But the hecklers who shouted down the white supremacist Thursday at his University of Florida speech were invited guests, not government crashers. They held tickets distributed by Spencer’s own National Policy Institute. So they didn’t violate Spencer’s free speech rights by drowning him out with chants telling him to go home.
Only the government is obligated to respect free speech rights -- and the university and law enforcement did everything by the book, to protect Spencer’s safety and preserve law and order outside the venue.
The key to understanding what happened in Gainesville in free speech terms is to recall that the First Amendment applies only to government conduct. If Spencer had been shut down by the state, his rights would have been violated.
www.bloomberg.com/...
disinformation troll-bots at work for #TrustFundFurher on the Twitter
Original tweet before trolls got to it…
It’s not just last year’s events that caused this. UF has a history of discrimination that the alt-right probably find appealing. UF still has buildings named after segregationists, has never apologized for its expulsion of LGBT students during the Reitz administration and has had a decrease in Black enrollment since affirmative action ended.