Richard Spencer, 35, is a symbol of a new generation of intellectual white supremacists. Based in Whitefish, Montana, he runs a variety of ventures that promote racist ideology.
Spencer received media attention this week after a reporter discovered that Spencer published two articles by Jason Richwine, co-author of the recent Heritage Foundation report on alleged costs of immigration report. Spencer published the pieces on on Alternative Right, a racist website he founded.
In addition to Alternative Right (which he no longer edits but still writes for), Spencer runs the National Policy Institute (NPI), a white supremacist think tank; publishes Radix, a journal that promotes white culture and identity, and heads Washington Summit Publishers, a company that sells books by leading intellectual white supremacists such as Jared Taylor of American Renaissance and the late Sam Francis.
Through all of these ventures, Spencer has become a leader in white supremacist circles that envision a “new” right that will openly embrace “white racial consciousness.” Although Spencer began his career The American Conservative, he has since rejected conservatism. He believes that conservatives can’t or won’t represent explicitly white interests.
Spencer has been an influence on a younger generation of college-age racists. In 2010 and 2011, leaders of the now defunct racist student group, Youth for Western Civilization, invited Spencer to speak at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee and Providence College in Rhode Island. In both speeches to students at the schools, Spencer attacked affirmative action.
In other instances, Spencer has rejected the idea of appealing to mainstream audiences. In a 2011 interview on the website of Wermod and Wermod, a British-based publishing company that also sells white supremacist books, Spencer said, “Trying to ‘work within the system,’ or appeal to European-Americans using the language of FOX News and the GOP, is a bootless—not to mention a tasteless—strategy.”
Instead, at the April 2013 American Renaissance conference, Spencer called for the creation of a “white ethno-state on the North American continent.”
Tags: ADL, alternative right, american renaissance, jared taylor, jason richwine, national policy institute, npi, radix, richard spencer, sam francis, the american conservative, washington summit publishers, wermod and wermod, white ethno-state, youth for western civilization
