For years, Aryan Nations aspired to have an uprising in the Northwest and turn five states into, literally, The Aryan Nation. With the group staggering from the double whammy of litigation and factionalism, the new goal is more modest: South Carolina.
Aryan Nations' Washington State leader, who gave only his first name, Paul, is 60-ish and has a British accent from 25 years in England. Paul outlined possible strategies for the group: Establishing a state in Alaska ("few minorities," he said), or a wholesale "South will rise again." Both of those he discounted as impractical, although certainly worthy.
In the end, Paul observed, the best option is to "look at the secession of South Carolina. Start with this state."
During an intermission, the bigot crowd took a break outside the front doors of the Redneck Shop, milling around an Aryan Nation flag mounted on a curb facing the county courthouse. Several men malevolently eyed a downtown shopper, Tyrone Russ, one of those black men deemed not quite human by the racists.
A supervisor at a Wal-Mart distribution center, Russ was visibly stunned to learn that scores of hatemongers were gathered down the street from the stores he was visiting with his young sons.
"As long as there are people," Russ said, "I guess there will be ignorance. But I thought all of that ignorance had left here long ago."
Guess not.
