I've known this guy for 3 years so far and he has a habit of seeking attention by initiating conversations with uncomfortable topics. Let's call him A.

He reminded me of myself in 8th grade. I was an edgy idiot who lived for every opportunity to play devil's advocate and frequently shitposted on 4chan's /b/ board. I think he was a /pol/ denizen (as he calls himself and middle eastern people sandniggers). He tells me he's not racist on the basis that he hates everyone and thinks some groups are worse than others in certain aspects. His definition of racism is that there must be a belief of superiority. My definition is that there must be a belief of hierarchy, I just believe that his version is just a negative hierarchy. I.e. everyone starts at zero and certain groups just go further below zero. E.g. "niggers" are different from and below "black people". All "niggers" are black but not all black people are niggers. Yes he said this. 

I wanted to help him dig himself out of what I perceived to be a hole.

Two years ago, I defended him when he wanted to discuss the etymology of the word "niggardly" with a black student in a designated African-American themed house on campus, by giving him the benefit of excusing this attention seeking behavior with probable autism. Although I don't blame the student for reporting this, I think it was knee jerk. However,  he was within his full right because A was a guest in his room. I believe this was their first real and direct interaction as A and I totally go to the room to hang out with his roommate Max or Christian. My backing didn't help much as he was removed from the house and was issued a no-contact directive.

 However, his next living arrangement was with a Jewish student that straight up lied to get him out of the room. I explained the situation when he asked why A was moving into the room. He was welcoming at first and offered me a beer once I complimented his choice of beer/talked about stouts, but rescinded the offer in a snarky way once he learned I was not 21. I think it was a dick move, but I dont hold it to him as I wouldn't want to jeopardize graduation in year 3 uni either. He claimed that one of our (A and I) friends was smoking in the room.(against university housing rules, but I believe her when she says she didn't) He claimed that the room was a mess. (We were moving his stuff in so things were on the floor and in boxes) The last accusation was that A made a racially charged statement. (Saying "Oh you're a Jew?" when it was made apparent) For me that's a grey area because it totally sounds like something A would say, but intonation is key and determines whether or not it is derogatory. I chose to back my friend up regardless because of the other lies that this person made. Apparently he also filed a police report that couldn't be found when A and I looked for the records. 

The end result was that A was moved to a single room and then given a higher bill because it's a single room. I helped him fight that too because he didn't sign up for it. 

Later that same year, he shows up to a BLM protest (that I was helping out with) with the intention of asking questions because he was "invited"(in my opinion he wasn't). He was just left on the African-American house's email list so he was sent an email inviting him to the protest that also had tons of information. When he showed up, he is recognized by the student as well as a TA (she was a little nutty but fell into his conversational traps in class e.g. got mad to the point of unprofessionalalism) and called a racist. They try to kick him out, non-violently of course, via collective body pushing. At this moment, he throws our mutual friend under the bus and says that she is associated with him which leads to her being kicked out too. 

My roommate asks me to get him out, but I'm too late. On the way home I'm extremely mad and agitated while I explain to him that this wasnt the right thing to do. He defends his actions with the email invitation. Our friend is emotionally distraught and ends up punching him in the face that night. We both believe he showed up to get punched by a protestor, spencer style. Technically he got what he wanted. However, he didn't report her to the police no matter how many times she told him to. After this, he filed a police report against his TA but I don't think anything came of it. Don't quote me on that. 

I live with him now, but he doesn't believe he's autistic. I think he toned down the frequency of his trouble some conversation habits and 4chan browsing. He has a girlfriend without a green card so he stopped taking about immigration/makes fun of people getting deported less. He also toned down on self-deprecating racist jokes about the middle east as his girlfriend is vocally bothered by them. They're both middle-eastern. However, he still occasionally comes to me with things that he thinks I'll get heated about. Our mutual friend steve acknowledges that A does this to him too.

E.g. asking me "do you think that milk is racist?" while fully knowing that a group of racists on /pol/ tried to make the act of aggressively drinking milk on front of black people a racist gesture. My answer if you care is along the lines of, "if you do it to be racist, its racist".