MIDDLETOWN, R.I. (AP) — A black man yelled at former White House press secretary Sean Spicer in a bookstore and accused Spicer of calling him a racial slur when they were students at a prep school decades ago.
Spicer was “taken aback” by the man’s “outrageous claim” and had no recollection of him or of being in school with him, his publicist said on Saturday.
Spicer was at a book signing in Middletown on Friday to promote his new book reflecting on his time at the press podium for President Donald Trump.
Alex Lombard, who was standing behind a small group of people waiting in line to meet Spicer and get him to sign the book, called out Spicer’s name and said they went to Portsmouth Abbey School together. Spicer waved to him and said, “Hey. Yeah. How are you?”
Lombard, a Newport native who now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, then accused Spicer of calling him the N-word and trying to fight him when they were at school.
“You don’t remember that you tried to fight me?” Lombard asked. “But you called me a (N-word) first.”
A security guard approached Lombard and led him away as he kept talking: “I was 14 then. I was a scared kid then, Sean. I’m not scared to fight you now.”
The Providence Journal reported Saturday that Lombard said he was a member of Portsmouth Abbey’s class of 1990. It said Spicer was a member of the class of 1989.
Phone and email messages left by The Associated Press for the school were not immediately returned.
A Newport Daily News video of the encounter doesn’t show how Spicer, who was seated at a table signing books, reacted to being accused of using the racial slur. But his publicist said he was shocked by the allegation.
Spicer “can’t recall any incident like this happening” and was “not sure if this was just a stunt this man was pulling,” Regnery Publishing publicist Lauren McCue said.
She said Spicer has been in the news a lot the last couple of years and it was “a very odd time” for an accusation like this to be made.
Spicer has been promoting “The Briefing: Politics, the Press, and the President,” which just came out. The book paints a rosy if sometimes thorny picture of Trump, describing him as “a unicorn, riding a unicorn over a rainbow” and a man to whom the regular rules of politics don’t apply.
Plenty of reasons to despise Spicer, without considering things he said when he was fourteen.
I don’t think that anyone who has had first-hand experience with Catholic boys’ prep schools–as I did too many years ago–would be surprised at the accusation leveled against Spicer. Although not a part of the academic curriculum, the social curriculum included middle and upper-middle-class boys learning the subtle ways of keeping “others” in their places, be it race, sex, or class. At 15, Spicer was probably a little crude in his ways of dealing with race, sex, and class. By the time he graduated, I am sure he was much more sophisticated in these areas, as his advancement through the Republican party all the way to the White House demonstrates.
Spicers a rich white guy that worked for the republican party. I’m guessing he used and uses racist slurs all the fucking time. Also misogynist terms. It’s the white male republican way.
Yes, but Spicer and his clan are the ones that say that racism doesn’t exist anymore. So, you are right. I don’t despise him because he was a vile piece of shit as a kid, I despise him because as an adult he’s a lying hypocrite, -and I don’t blame Lombard for wanting to give Spicer some comeuppance about it.
The rot runs deep in our society, from racism to misogny to bigotry to abuse. The US has done an effective job of papering over this rot for many years with the argument that the good outweighs the bad. It was effective so long as we had somewhat responsible, law abiding and decent leaders. George W. Bush was probably at the very edge of what our society could handle. However, under Trump that house of cards has collapsed and everything is getting exposed.
A lot of the racial incidents that people are taping and sending viral were fairly commonplace in the 70s, 80s and into the mid 90s. A part of our society evolved past it. A part of it didn’t. The un-evolved side got angry that their views were no longer seen as within the range of acceptability (for example, being against gay marriage or generally being gay phobic was not viewed as a slight on one’s character back in the 90s but it is today in much of suburban America) and they revolted and adopted the ‘own the libs’ philosophy that is about the most succinct and visceral description of what the GOP actually stands for. I would be willing to forgive Spicer for being a dumb, privileged white kid spouting off words that others commonly used to be a dick and not quite grasping the level of inappropriateness, but only if he can show that he evolved. Supporting Trump means he didn’t evolve, so Spicer gets what he gets.