Page 23 - Flathead Beacon // 11.26.14

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NOVEMBER 26, 2014 | 23 toriety as an incubator for such groups;
Spencer called those people extreme, and added that he is not a “white su- premacist.”
“I am a radical. I am not an extrem- ist. An extremist is someone who takes things too far. A radical is someone who wants to get to the root of something,” he said.
Spencer says he harbors no desire to advertise his views to his neighbors. “I don’t want to get in big disputes with anyone in Whitefish,” he says. “I would like this to be a place where I have a little bit of an anonymous status.”
But a recent report by The Daily Beast detailed a confrontation in early 2013 between Spencer and former John McCain advisor Randy Scheunemann, who owns a vacation home in Whitefish. At the time, both men were members of the private Big Mountain Club, and were riding a chairlift together when, upon realizing Scheunemann’s identity, Spen- cer began berating the man.
Scheunemann subsequently quit the Big Mountain Club when, he told report- ers, it refused to oust Spencer from its ranks. Riley Polumbus, spokesperson for Whitefish Mountain Resort, said the claim that Scheunemann made a call for an ultimatum is untrue, and that both Scheunemann and Spencer resigned on their own accord.
According to a statement from the ski resort: “Whitefish Mountain Resort and the Big Mountain Club are not po- litical organizations and will remain that way. That being the case, we won’t tolerate hate or inappropriate conduct. With regard to Richard Spencer, Randy Scheunemann and the Big Mountain Club, those individuals have submitted their resignations and thus neither will be a member of the Big Mountain Club for the 2014-15 season and beyond. Any suggestion that the Big Mountain Club has sided with a white supremacist in this matter is false, defamatory and con- trary to what the Big Mountain Club and Whitefish Mountain Resort stand for.”
Spencer called the confrontation with Scheunemann and its aftermath unfortunate, and said he intends to avoid Scheunemann in the community. He also called the confrontation an ab- erration from his normal behavior.
Diane Smith, the local entrepreneur, encouraged the Whitefish City Coun- cil to think outside the box and use its power and intellect to craft a solution that distances NPI and Spencer from the community, even if that means chal- lenging legal precedent. She pointed to the council meeting’s turnout and the textured political spectrum of its at- tendees as evidence of the strong sup- port for such a measure.
“Sunlight really is the best deter- rent, and this needs to be something the community discusses,” she said. “We are all here, from the right, the left and the center, banding together through a sense of justice and sensibility. You have other tools in your toolbox. We prohibit porn shops, jaywalking and marijuana head shops, and we can regulate hate. Some issues are worth being sued over.”
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tute in 2010 and moving to Montana.
In April 2013, Spencer spoke at the American Renaissance conference, or- ganized by a think tank of the same name, which promotes pseudo-scientif- ic studies and research that purport to
show the inferiority of blacks to whites. In his speech, he advocated the creation of a white ethno-state on the North American continent, calling it an
attainable goal.
“In the public imagination, ‘ethnic-
cleansing’ has been associated with civil war and mass murder (understandably so). But this need not be the case,” he said.
In a recent conversation with the Beacon, the threads of Spencer’s eth- nocentricism were slower to emerge during a lengthy discussion that ranged from the pitfalls of public education and social programs to Christopher Nolan’s space epic “Interstellar,” and from a ski- summit confrontation with a Washing- ton, D.C. foreign policy adviser to the “biological realities of race” and the need for a white ethno-state.
His goal, he stressed, is to apply his philosophies globally, not in the Flat- head Valley, and he balked at the recent public hearing in which attendees re- peatedly labeled him a racist, accusing him of trying to realize NPI’s goals in the largely homogeneous communi- ty of Whitefish.
“Racist isn’t a descriptive word. It’s a pejorative word. It is the equivalent of saying, ‘I don’t like you.’ ‘Racist’ is just a slur word,” he said. “I think race is real, and I think race is important. And those two principles do not mean I want to harm someone or hate someone. But the notion that these people can be equal is not a scientific way of looking at it.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center has named Spencer and NPI one of the four leaders in the world of “academic racism.”
Spencer recently re-emerged in the national purview when he was arrested for 72 hours in Budapest, Hungary, and was subsequently banned from the coun- try and most of the European Union for three years after trying to hold a confer- ence expressing the group’s views.
In the wake of the renewed publicity, dozens of Whitefish residents banded together to urge council members to en- act an ordinance barring hate-group ac- tivities in the community.
Organized by civil rights activist and local Rabbi Allen Secher, his wife, Ina Albert, and a host of other community advocates, the residents offered emo- tional testimony in an effort to “pass a no-hate ordinance so that hate organi- zations cannot do business in our town,” Albert said.
Brian Muldoon, a Whitefish attorney, said the proliferation of the views be- longing to Spencer and NPI is dangerous.
“This isn’t about one individual, it is about a way of thinking that is despi- cable,” Muldoon said. “This community I believe is standing up strongly against the kinds of ideas that Richard Spencer and his ilk promotes ... and it is time to deconstruct the ideas that are so insidi- ous. It is time to take a very clear stance.
An unambiguous one.”
At the end of the public testimony,
which ran close to 90 minutes, White- fish Mayor John Muhlfeld explained the procedural steps the council would have to take to consider such a measure, in- cluding advertising a hearing publicly, a planning board recommendation, and holding two council hearings for addi- tional public comment.
“We will respond decisively, and I think we have multiple tools in our tool- box to consider this,” he said.
Similar anti-hate or anti-discrim- ination ordinances have been passed in other local communities, though in- fringing on First Amendment rights is a litigious issue, something that many of the speakers acknowledged.
Jan Metzmaker, former director of the Whitefish Convention and Visi- tors Bureau, which promotes tourism in the area, said she has known of Spen- cer’s presence for a couple of years, but thought giving him publicity would be counterproductive, harming the local economy and assigning him a level of no- toriety that would buoy his public per- sona.
“We had this problem two years ago and I was shocked. But I didn’t want to bring more notoriety and press,” Metz- maker said. “Eventually you have to take a stand, but he’s allowed his freedom of speech. As abhorrent as his ideas are it will be difficult to find a place where he has his rights and we’re allowed ours. Still, I encourage the council to consider this issue.”
On Nov. 24, the Whitefish Conven- tion and Visitors Bureau and the White- fish Chamber of Commerce issued a joint statement supporting the passage of a “no-hate” ordinance, stating that they “adamantly disapprove of discrimi- nation.”
At the end of the recent meeting’s public testimony, council member Rich- ard Hildner offered his own emotional statement in support of a countermea- sure to local “hate groups,” his voice choked with emotion as he fought back tears.
“Hate, racism, and bigotry are not community values in Whitefish and I promise you that I will do everything in my power to protect the city of White- fish from racism, bigotry and prejudice,” Hildner said. “I want you to know that you have my pledge.”
Spencer’s presence is not the first time that a fringe group has found pur- chase in the Flathead Valley, or made headlines. Both Secher and Albert re- ferred in their testimony to a spate of Holocaust-denial films shown public- ly in the Flathead Valley in 2009 and 2010. The events were organized by well-known white supremacists seek- ing to transform the valley into a bas- tion for those who share white sepa- ratist ideologies.
The films prompted the formation of Love Lives Here, and residents attend- ing the council meeting clutched posters bearing the group’s motto.
“I love this town. I adore it and I want to keep adoring it,” Secher told the council. “Let’s not even open the door to
this guy.”
But the door has been opened, and
Spencer doesn’t intend to leave, calling the notion of banning a person for his views ridiculous.
“I think the notion of banning me from a town is illegitimate,” Spencer said. “In any kind of activism, you want to personify an enemy. And I think that I have become that in some ways. I am kind of an easy target for them at the moment. But it seems more than a little bizarre that they are doing this. It seems that their end goal is totally misguided and I think it would be something they have a difficult time supporting mor- ally and legally. Any time you talk about banning someone who is a law-abiding citizen, you are supporting what you op- pose, which is fascism.”
Supporters of a measure, as well as leaders of Montana’s Human Rights Network, say his goals are obvious, and accuse him of soft-pedaling his intent. They claim he is trying to achieve a white ethno-state in the Flathead Val- ley, and that his and his mother’s con- struction of a building on Lupfer Avenue in Whitefish is proof of his plan to pro- mote his agenda here.
NPI tax forms reveal a Whitefish P.O. Box, and state that its accomplishments include hosting a conference in Seattle on the matter of genetics, publishing a biannual journal on cultural matters and developing and maintaining a web- site “dedicated to original writing on so- cial, cultural and scientific matters.”
But Spencer laughs at the notion that he’s trying to promote his agenda in Whitefish, describing his goals as loftier than a local ethno-state.
“I don’t really engage in activism and I’m not trying to take over a town. That is not what I do. I am more inter- ested in connecting with people around the world and changing people’s minds,” he said. “I have never been interested in starting a movement here. That sounds a bit fantastical. Obviously I am trying to build a movement of people around the world and including the United States, but when I talk about an ethno-state I am not interested in maintaining a sta- tus quo. You can find an all-white suburb and say it is an ethno-state, but that is not what I am talking about. You could look at the Flathead Valley and call it an ethno-state because it’s 96 percent white. But the ethno-state I envision will arise as a future society.”
He continued: “What really makes European people special and our heri- tage special is that we reach for the stars and we believe in something higher than ourselves. I don’t want a society based on equality. I want a society that reaches for the stars. If you want to ask me about what am I thinking about at 2 a.m., that’s it. Reaching for the stars. In a way that is what an ethno-state is. It is an ideal. It is something to shoot for and strive for. It is not just about being in a place where you are amongst white people.”
He also dismissed the notion that he was drawn to the Flathead Valley in part because of the potential to find traction with like-minded white nationalists in the region, which has at times gained no-