By now everyone and their mom has probably seen all of the trending tweets and videos from when self proclaimed Alt-Right pioneer Richard Spencer gave a talk at Texas A&M University.

If you’ve never heard of Richard Spencer, consider yourself blessed. If you want to learn about white supremacy you can waste 10 Joules of energy googling him and watching hate fill your screen. Texas A&M’s president, Michael Young, made it clear to many outraged students, myself included, that the school did not invite Richard Spencer. Instead, Spencer was invited by a former student named Preston Wiginton, a pathetic racist who lives in Russia spreading his hate filled message to skinheads, neo-Nazis, and anyone ignorant enough to listen to him.

This isn’t the first time Wiginton given hatred a platform at Texas A&M. In 2005, he sponsored the anti-immigration preacher Frosty Woolridge’s speech. Given his track record, it’s baffling how Texas A&M continues to give this man and his friends a platform for their hate speech. However, I am a firm believer in listening to others and understanding where others are coming from, so a group of friends and I marched our black blackity black butts to the venue to listen to him speak.

Spencer came out that evening with a wine glass full of red, thick liquid to the cheers of white supremacists that I apparently go to school with. Anyone who comes to a talk wanting to be taken seriously but decides that it’s also an appropriate time to drink loses credibility. There is a time and place for that, and giving a “serious speech” is not the time for it.

Spencer made a lot of claims that evening, backing none of them up with facts or statistics. One of my favourite lies was his claim that white people were “the first on the moon so the moon belongs to white people.” Even if we were to humour Spencer’s notion that white people “own the moon,” the only reason they “own this moon” was because THEY PREVENTED BLACK PEOPLE FROM GAINING THE NECESSARY EDUCATION/TRAINING to do this great work. And for the few of those who did, they simply whitewashed their efforts.

He went so far as to say white people were the “architects of America” and asserted that America doesn’t need labour performed by minorities because, “white people can pick their own God-d***** sweet potatoes.” That line led to an eruption of applause amongst his 10 present supporters and snickers from the rest of the crowd which knew that no state in America based their economy on sweet potatoes. Or remembered that for centuries white people actually didn’t pick produce and even today lock LatinX, primarily Mexican, into picking it for them for devastatingly low wages.

40 years ago, I would not have been allowed in this school simply because of my skin tone, and anyone that spews rhetoric with the hope of reverting back to these practices NEEDS TO BE PROTESTED AND SPOKEN OUT AGAINST.

To build on the cheers that his “pro white” comments garnered from his measly number of supporters, he found any opportunity he could to bring up the fact that white people are the “dominant race.” He expanded on that by screaming “white people conquered America.” What he fails to realise is that white people weren’t the dominant race at the time America was conquered, they simply were the diseased race. His ancestors brought their filth and killed everyone with it, passing out blankets with smallpox that infected and killed Native groups. They weren’t smarter than anyone else, they were just more diseased.

He expanded on his claim of “white people are a superior race” by preaching a lot of euro-centric rhetoric but what he fails to realise is that 27 European countries that are part of his beloved continent have, banned his stupid self from speaking. Even his beloved continent doesn’t want him.

The funniest thing about his euro-centric basis for “finding white identity” is that EUROPEAN IS NOT A CULTURE. He says to find pride in being a white European, but there are over 100 languages in Europe that have different cultures. He alludes to the detrimental aspect of “America being a melting pot,” but Europe is also a “melting pot.” European culture is not homogenous. All you have to do is take a 5-hour euro-rail journey from England, and you will find yourself in a different country (still in Europe) with a language and customs you can’t understand. The culture of Sweden is different from the culture of Serbia even though they are both European and majority “white” countries.

What struck me as peculiar was the fact that a University allowed a man that had no facts, statistics, or data to support any of his claims of “white genocide” going on in America and Europe or any other B.S he said. He just sat there sipping a suspicious red liquid and rambling. I understand that Texas A&M is a public institute of higher education, I just didn’t know that they were a public institution of higher white supremacist education. I realise that everyone is entitled to their opinion, but they basically invited Hitler’s clone to speak in the name of free speech.

Many of us stood up, protesting verbally against his wrong statements and asking questions to show the faults in his thinking. All the “heckling” from the logical people in the room didn’t go over so well because the night was not free of some tense, almost outright violent, moments. His rhetoric stirred up a lot of hatred resulting in bursts of violence throughout an otherwise peaceful campus. Inside the room where his speech was held, the racists taunts and jeers and instigations from his supporters even got so bad that one African American girl went to a police officer crying, yet there was no effort to speak to or remove the man that was hurling ignorant, despicable comments. Some of Spencer’s supporters even got up to physically clash with some silent protestors in the room while the audience clung to their seats in stunned silence and the police, present in the room, looked on. Outside the room, there was a major protest, that started around 4 pm, happening in front of the building where Spencer was speaking at. Some of Spencer’s supporters even joined the protests going on outside.

Line of silent protestors surpasses the length of the MSC. #BATTLive pic.twitter.com/rqQEw99D9e — Emmy Bost (@EmmyBost) December 6, 2016

Both inside and outside of the room where Spencer gave his speech, neither Spencer nor his supporters were attacked. From the multiple students I have talked to that were actively involved in the protests, which started outside the building and eventually spilled inside, any perceived sparring between the two sides were in reaction to the blatant racists statements and words made by Spencer’s supporters. However, the presence and actions of the riot police just escalated an otherwise peaceful demonstration of freedom of speech at the building where Spencer was giving his talk.

At one point I had enough of Spencer’s statements and called him a chicken nugget which was better than n-word and other derogatory statements his followers made that night. The final straw for me was when he made fun of multiple people’s weight that stood up to disagree with his views. He also made fun of the way autistic people behaved and then went on to justify it by saying we all need to be able to take a joke, and called a white ally trying to dismantle the hatred he was spewing a loser because of the way he dressed. I couldn’t help myself and screamed for him to stop and act like an adult, and he maturely responded with “no, you stop.”I know his IQ is 5, but I didn’t know his age was as well.

Anyone that has to resort to making fun of disabilities or someone’s weight basically admits their argument is baseless. He also had the building that MY TUITION MONEY PAYS FOR shut down so he could make his swift exist. He spent a good chunk of his speech attacking “safe spaces,” yet he had a whole building shut down, because he thought he was in danger? No one even attacked him. At the end of the night so many people were laughing over the mess that they had just witnessed that no one even cared enough to want to attack him.

40 years ago, I would not have been allowed in this school simply because of my skin tone, and anyone that spews rhetoric with the hope of reverting back to these practices NEEDS TO BE PROTESTED AND SPOKEN OUT AGAINST. It was great however to see students of every skin tone come together in a dignified and educated way, debasing the claims this man made and exposing him for the spoilt brat he is. For the first time, sitting in that room surrounded by a lot of people that shared the same detest for Richard Spencer like I did, I felt part of the “Aggie family” A&M boasts about so much.