Authorities are investigating racist text messages sent to black Americans across the country telling them to report to a plantation “to pick cotton”.
“The FBI is aware of the offensive and racist text messages sent to individuals around the country and is in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities on the matter,” the agency said.
The messages appear to have started on Wednesday, the day after election day.
Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesman, said: “The campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these text messages.” The source of the anonymous messages and the total number sent are unclear.
TextNow, a mobile provider that allows people to create phone numbers for free, said it found one or more of its accounts were used to send text messages “in violation of its terms of service”.
Racist texts instructing Black Americans nationwide to report to a plantation “to pick cotton” are being looked into by authorities.
In Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia, New York, and Pennsylvania, among other states, the recipients were Black Americans, including school and college students.
“The FBI is in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities on the matter and is aware of the offensive and racist text messages sent to individuals nationwide,” the FBI stated.
The messages seem to have begun on Wednesday, the day following the election. The Trump campaign was mentioned in a few of the messages, but they vehemently denied any involvement.
“These text messages have nothing to do with the campaign,” campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung stated. “”.
It’s unclear how many anonymous messages were sent overall and from whom.
A 42-year-old Indiana mother forwarded a copy of the texts her daughter, who is in high school, received to the BBC.
“Selected to become a slave at your nearest plantation,” the messages stated, the daughter would be “picked up in a white van” and “searched thoroughly once you’ve reached your destination.”.
The messages made the woman feel “really vulnerable” and “extremely, extremely alarming,” according to the woman, who asked to remain anonymous for her own safety.
She claimed that although the timing is unique to the day after the election, it is due to America’s past. This needed to be a planned endeavor. “.”.
Hailey Welch, another recipient, told a student newspaper at the University of Alabama that the messages had also reached other students on campus.
When I first saw that everyone else was getting them, I thought it was a joke. “People were posting on their stories, texting, and claiming to have received them,” Ms. Welch told The Crimson White. “I was just afraid and anxious because I had no idea what was going on.”. “”.
Although the messages’ wording varied, they typically mentioned “slave” labor and told recipients to report to a “plantation” or wait to be picked up in a van.
The BBC’s partner network in the US, CBS News, said the texts came from numbers with area codes in at least 25 states.
A mobile provider called TextNow, which lets users generate phone numbers for free, reported that it discovered that at least one of its accounts was being used to send text messages “in violation of its terms of service.”. Within an hour of learning about the misuse, the company disabled the accounts, according to a statement.
According to the statement, “We will cooperate with law enforcement to stop these individuals from using our service to send harassing or spam messages in the future.”.
As a result of President-elect Trump’s election, the civil rights organization NAACP denounced the messages.
The group’s CEO, Derrick Johnson, stated, “These actions are not normal.”. “These messages reflect a concerning rise in hateful and disgusting rhetoric from racist organizations nationwide, who now feel empowered to incite hatred and feed the fears that many of us are experiencing in the wake of Tuesday’s election results. “.”.
“These messages are unacceptable,” said Jessica Rosenworcel, chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission, which is also looking into the messages. We are very serious about this kind of targeting. “”.
Top law enforcement officials in multiple states acknowledged receiving the messages and urged citizens to notify the authorities if they did.
The attorney general’s office in Nevada stated that it was attempting to “investigate the origin of what seem to be robotext messages.”.
Attorney General Liz Murrill of Louisiana said in a statement that investigators from the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation had linked some of the messages to a Polish virtual private network, which is a technique used to conceal the source of electronic communications.
They could have come from any bad actor state in the region or the world, according to Murrill, who said investigators “have found no original source.”.
“It doesn’t make it any safer or better that it could have been foreign,” the Indiana mother told the BBC in response to reports that the messages might have come from overseas. “.”.
“They understand American mentality,” she remarked.
