Richard Spencer Bounced $10,000 Check For Campus Event In Florida

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By Sam Kestenbaum November 9, 2017

White nationalist Richard Spencer has spent the last several months ramping up a campus tour — but is apparently still struggling with some basic financial logistics.

In the leadup to his recent speech at Florida University, Spencer and his white nationalist think tank paid for their venue space with a check for some $10,000 — that bounced a few days later, the Huffington Post reported.

The think tank eventually wired the money to the school in time for the October 19 speech — and the talk went on as planned.

“Bounced checks are not uncommon, of course,” the Huffington Post wrote, but the move the slip-up is perhaps surprising — coming from Spencer’s “supposedly racially superior team.”

The Huffington Post obtained a trove of emails revealing how Spencer’s thinktank planned for the campus event.

Spencer is a high profile figure in the “alt-right” and has been at the forefront of an accelerated campus outreach effort on the part of white nationalists. Spencer preaches what amounts to boilerplate white nationalism — viewing whites as an imperiled race facing off against a “rising tide” of brown and black people. While Spencer has praised Israel as a “model” for his dreamed-of “white ethnostate,” he also believes that Jews have contributed to the downfall of whites.

Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbum

Sam Kestenbaum is a contributing editor and former staff writer for the Forward. Before this, he worked for The New York Times and newsrooms in Sana, Ramallah and Beijing. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum and on Instagram at @skestenbaum.

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