Richard Spencer Ranted on Banning SEC Football and the Sick "Southern Football Industry" While Speaking at Auburn

Richard Spencer spoke at Auburn University this evening after a federal judge ruled that the University had to let him speak, after they had previously canceled an event. Spencer is of course, the neo-nazi/white nationalist who coined the term “alt-right” and who speaks out on white race superiority, and was famously punched while being interviewed while in Washington D.C. during Trump’s inauguration.

Protests happened all around Spencer’s appearance at Auburn, and then he chose a portion of his speech to speak out against college football.

That doesn’t fully capture the depth of what Spencer said about SEC football. If you so choose to hear him speak, video of the live event is available here, and starting around the 48 minute mark, he said the following as it relates to football at Auburn. It included attacks on the character of African-American football players and references to rape of white women, and ended with him saying he would ban football.

"There is something truly sick, I have to say, about bringing in to a school, a school like Auburn that has a history of white identity, to bring in people, who let’s be frank, are not the greatest exemplars of the African race [crowd moans and reacts] if we want to judge them by their character, we want to judge them by their commitment to being student-athletes, they are absolutely not great exemplars of the African race. For alumnae of this institution to be funding these kinds of programs, to be bringing in people they have nothing in common with, that they would not allow into their homes, people who walk around campus like they own it, who engage in all sorts of activities including sexual abuse of white women on campus. [applause] The notion that that is some great source of identity, well, call me a little bit skeptical. [crowd yells over each other] We lose ourselves in these false identities. [more yelling]. We lose ourselves in this false identity of something like football, this billion dollar circus that we want to substitute for something real, that we want to substitute for our homes and our families, that we want to substitute for our senses of ourselves. Yes, that is absolutely sick. Yes, if I could wave a magic wand, I would absolutely ban football. But I think this, this embrace of something as sick as the Southern football industry, the SEC and all this stuff, something as sick as that, we are covering up some hole in ourselves. We are rooting on people that you have no connection to, that don’t represent you–they don’t represent you–you’re rooting on this sick industry to substitute for that hole in yourself. … instead they’ve substituted some disgusting bullshit football game."

There are some who root for the jerseys on Saturday but harbor views more similar to Spencer’s otherwise on race relations, but he is causing some major conflict among people of all political and social stripes when he attacks SEC football. He’ll be lucky to make it off campus.