Richard B. Spencer
| Richard Bertrand Spencer | |
|---|---|
| Born |
May 11, 1978 Boston, Massachusetts |
| Residence | United States |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago, St. Mark's School of Texas |
| Occupation | author, publisher, activist |
| Known for | President of The National Policy Institute, political activism |
Richard Bertrand Spencer (born May 11, 1978) is an American writer, publisher, and activist. He is President of The National Policy Institute, a white nationalist think-tank, and Washington Summit Publishers, an independent publishing firm. Both institutions have issued studies of culture, society, nationalism, eugenics, and the study of race and intelligence.
Early life
Richard Spencer was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in Dallas, Texas, where he graduated from St. Mark's School of Texas. In 2001, he received a B.A. from the University of Virginia and, in 2003, a M.A. from the University of Chicago. Between 2005-2007, he was a doctoral student in History at Duke University.[1]
Career
Spencer has an assistant editor at The American Conservative magazine and Editor of Taki's Magazine (takimag.com). In 2010, he founded Alternative Right, a webzine that he edited until 2012. Spencer has been published at Right Now!, The American Conservative, American Renaissance, VDARE.com, The Occidental Observer, and other publications.
In 2012, he founded Radix Journal[2] as biannual publication of Washington Summit Publishers. Contributors included Kevin MacDonald, Alex Kurtagic, Samuel T. Francis, Andy Nowicki, Derek Turner, and others. He also hosts a weekly podcast, Vanguard Radio (a successor to AltRight Radio).
Spencer has been a guest speaker at Hans-Hermann Hoppe's Property and Freedom Society, The Traditional Britain Group, American Renaissance, and the HL Mencken Club.
Views
Greg Johnson, then-editor of The Occidental Quarterly, stressed how Spencer's concept of the "AltRight" was about bringing together a wide variety of perspectives that are outside the purview of the American Conservative movement:[3]
[Alternative Right] will attract the brightest 'young' conservatives and libertarians and expose them to far broader intellectual horizons, including race realism, White Nationalism, the European New Right, the Conservative Revolution, Traditionalism, neo-paganism, agrarianism, Third Positionism, anti-feminism, and right-wing anti-capitalists, ecologists, bioregionalists, and small-is-beautiful types.
Spencer advocates a non-interventionist foreign policy and has criticized both neoconservatism and humanitarian interventionism. In July 2012 Richard Spencer was interviewed by the Russian-based television network RT about the situation in Libya and harshly criticized US policies.[4]
The Anti-Defamation League reports,[5]
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.In 2013, Spencer spoke at the American Renaissance conference and advocated that nationalists reject immigration and focus on the long-term goal of establishing a "White ethno-state in the North American continent.
Controversies
AltRight has been an object of criticism, both the Left and Right. Examples of the former include the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has characterized the site as "yet another far-right magazine," as well as "loaded with contributors who...have long lamented the white man’s decline."[6] Conservative critiques include E.D. Kain's contention at True/Slant, that "the far-right-wingers at Alternative Right represent the ugly – and yes racist – underbelly of ‘alt’ conservatism. This is white nationalism, folks, dressed up in faux-intellectualism."[7]
In March 2010, Spencer was interviewed by Tim Mak of FrumForum, the online magazine of George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum. Mak concluded that AltRight's "ideas belong in some sort of padded room," and that its writers are "going to be white nationalists, but, by God, they’re going to be a little fancy about it."[8]
In May 2013, Yahoo! News reported that Jason Richwine, then a scholar at The Heritage Foundation and co-author of a controversial study on the costs of amnesty, had published an article and blog at AlternativeRight.com in 2010. The Rachel Maddow Show publicized these findings in a segment of the program on May 9, 2013.[9]
References
- ↑ http://www.npiamerica.org/leadership/, "NPI's Leadership," (retrieved July 23rd, 2013)
- ↑ http://washsummit.com/radix-journal/, "Radix Journal," (retrieved July 23rd, 2013).
- ↑ The Occidental Quarterly, "Richard Spencer Launches Alternative Right," by Greg Johnson (March 2nd, 2010 - retrieved on May 27th, 2011).
- ↑ RT, "Thugs, Islamists & chaos' - welcome to New Libya?. Russia Today. 2012-07-09. Retrieved 2013-08-06.".
- ↑ http://blog.adl.org/extremism/richard-spencer-a-symbol-of-the-new-white-supremacy, "Richard Spencer: A Symbol fo the New White Supremacy," (retrieved July 23rd, 2013)
- ↑ Southern Poverty Law Center, "Paleocon Starts New Extreme-Right Magazine," by Larry Keller (March 15th, 2010 - retrieved on May 23rd, 2011).
- ↑ True/Slant, "Richard Spencer and the ugly white nationalism of the Alternative Right," by E.D. Kain (March 13th, 2010 - retrieved on May 27th, 2011).
- ↑ FrumForum, "The “New” Racist Right," by Tim Mak (March 8th, 2010 - retrieved on May 29th, 2011).
- ↑ http://www.mediaite.com/tv/maddow-rips-conservative-think-tank-for-immigration-study-co-author-who-claimed-latinos-have-lower-iqs/, "Maddow Rips Conservative Think Tank For Immigration Study Co-Author Who Claimed Latinos Have Lower IQs" (retrieved July 23rd, 2013).