Holocaust Shooting Signals Race Turmoil, Some Say

Crazies. Lone nut jobs. Isolated loonies. Those are frequent descriptions of people like James von Brunn, the 88-year-old white supremacist accused of opening fire at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and killing a black guard.

Others believe he represents something more dangerous: a growing racist movement motivated by a number of converging factors, including the first black president.

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The movement has broadened beyond neo-Nazis. Advocacy groups for blacks and Hispanics unwittingly provided a blueprint for others to organize and defend the interests of white people.

Louis R. Andrews is chairman of the National Policy Institute, a white advocacy group. He does not advocate violence, but expects to see increased racial animosity that will eventually manifest itself in more physical attacks.

“There’s no such thing as post-racial,” Andrews said, when asked about the claim that Obama’s election moved American race relations to a better place. “There’s conflict, conflict, and continued conflict.”

Andrews said he voted for Obama because “I want to see the Republican Party destroyed, so it can be reborn as a party representing the interests of white people, and not entrenched corporate elites.”

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