Pro-Trump Turning Point USA Boots UNLV President Over ‘White Power’ Video

The right-wing college group Turning Point USA booted a member Friday after a viral video showed several people shouting “white power” and “fuck the niggers.”

A man identified as Riley Grisar, the president of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas chapter of Turning Point USA, appears in the video flashing an “OK” hand symbol, which has been used by members of the alt-right to signify “white power,” and repeatedly says the words “white power.”

In the video, a woman he is hugging is heard shouting “we’re going to rule the country” and “fuck the niggers.”

Turning Point boots UNLV president:

The group did not identify Grisar in their statement but announced that they had removed a member of its UNLV chapter in a statement posted to Twitter.

“As soon as the video in question came to the attention of Turning Point USA staff, we swiftly and permanently removed the student from any current or future involvement with our organization,” the statement said. “His comments were abhorrent, un-American, and disqualifying.”

“We’d also like to commend the decisive action taken by the UNLV chapter leadership that acted quickly to remove the student from their chapter membership and involvement,” the group said. “As any large organization should, TPUSA has a zero-tolerance policy for hate, no matter the medium or how dated the act or comment, and we hold our tens of thousands of students to the highest standards.”

Turning Point USA has a long history of racial hostility:

“Perhaps most troubling for an organization that holds up conservatives as the real victims of discrimination in America, Turning Point USA is also alleged to have fostered an atmosphere that is hostile to minorities,” The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer reported. “Screenshots provided to me by a source show that Crystal Clanton, who served until last summer as the group’s national field director, sent a text message to another Turning Point employee saying, ‘i hate black people. Like fuck them all . . . I hate blacks. End of story.’”

Gabrielle Fequiere, a former TPUSA employee, told the outlet that she worked as a field director for the group.

“In looking back, I think it was racist,” she said. “At the time, I was blaming myself, and I thought I did something wrong.”

Fequirie said black recruits were dis-invited from events and speakers at those events “spoke badly about black women having all these babies out of wedlock. It was really offensive.”

“I was the only black American employee they had, and they fired me on M.L.K. Day—it was so rude!” she added. “I felt very uncomfortable working there because I was black.”

“My Democratic friends had told me that some Republicans didn’t care about the poor and minorities, and I thought it wasn’t true, but then I found the people they were talking about!” she said.

 

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