FLORIDA: Hundreds Protest But Campus Speech By Nazi Richard Spencer Goes Off With Little Incident

The BBC reports:

Hundreds of protesters have marched on the University of Florida to decry a speech by a white nationalist. Richard Spencer’s event in Gainesville has prompted the governor to declare a state of emergency, and hundreds of police have also flooded the campus.

Mr Spencer struggled to speak over a crowd of protesters, who jeered and chanted “go home, Spencer!” His speech comes two months after a far-right rally in Virginia left an anti-racism protester dead.

“I’m not going home, I will stand here all day if I have to,” Mr Spencer said, calling the crowd a mob and “shrieking and grunting morons”. Audience members continued to heckle him, chanting “Nazis are not welcome here” and “Let’s go, Gators!”, a nod to the college’s mascot.

More from Reuters:

Amid heavy police presence, demonstrators taking part in the rally chanted “Stand up, fight back” and “Go home, Spencer.” A plane flew overhead with a sign that read “Love conquers hate! Love will prevail!” A man hired as security for media was arrested for illegally carrying a firearm on campus, the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office said.

About 15 white men, all dressed in white shirts and khaki pants, raised their hands when Spencer asked who identified with the alt-right, a loose grouping characterized by a rejection of mainstream politics that includes neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites.

The university said it did not invite Spencer to speak, but was obligated by law to allow the event. The school said it will spend more than $500,000 on security, and the National Policy Institute is paying more than $10,000 to rent the facility and for security within the venue.

And from NBC News:



Spencer seemed to revel in the attention. He held a pre-speech news conference in which he denied being a white supremacist and compared his vision of an “ethno state” to the pursuit of Israel as a Jewish state. He also parried reporters’ questions with condescending answers, calling them “dumb,” “not smart enough,” and compared them to preschoolers.

And he described his supporters as being oppressed by “politically correct” opponents. He called Thursday’s event as a victory, proof “that we are persevering.” While Spencer responded to protesters in the theater, a white man with swastikas on his shirt waded into the crowd outside, where he was confronted by protesters, one of whom spit on him, and another who shoved him.

A black man asked the white man why he didn’t like him, and when he got no response, the black man hugged him. Then someone in the crowd shoved the white man, and another hit him. As the white man walked away, the crowd chanted, “Go home, Nazi scum.”