Wave of racist texts targets black Americans
Washington: Federal and state authorities in the US are investigating a wave of bigoted text messages sent anonymously that have spread alarm among black Americans across the country this week, officials and recipients told Reuters.
The messages urged recipients in multiple states, including Alabama, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia, to report to a plantation to pick cotton, an offensive reference to past enslavement of black people in the United States.
Supporters at Kamala Harris’ concession speech at Howard University on Wednesday.Credit: AP
It is unclear who is behind the reported texts, how many people had received them, or how the recipients were targeted.
The Federal Communications Commission said on Friday that its enforcement bureau was among those probing the incidents.
Louisiana Attorney-General Liz Murrill, a Republican, told Reuters on Friday that her office was among those investigating the text messages, adding that some targets – herself included – also received emails.
Murrill, who is white, said one of the messages hit her personal email box at 8.17am on Friday (US time), according to a screenshot of the message she shared with Reuters.
One of the racist texts being sent to black Americans.
The message greeted her with an ethnic slur and said: “Now that Trump is president, you have been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation”, and “Our guys will come get you in a van.”
She said the FBI was also looking into the messages.
US Vice President Kamala Harris departs the stage after conceding the election.Credit: Getty Images
High school and college students were among the recipients, the Associated Press reported.
“These actions are not normal. And we refuse to let them be normalised,” Derrick Johnson, the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, said in a statement from the organisation, which advocates for racial justice and rights for black Americans.
Johnson said the messages were a reflection of Republican Donald Trump’s presidential election victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, on Tuesday, which sent shockwaves through black American communities.
A spokesperson for the president-elect did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday and Friday. Trump denies he is racist and has said his economic agenda would benefit all Americans.
An exit poll conducted by Edison Research on election day showed Harris winning 85 per cent of the black vote nationwide while Trump won 13 per cent, up 1 percentage point from an exit poll in 2020, when he lost to President Joe Biden.
“We strongly condemn these hateful messages and anyone targeting Americans based on their ethnicity or background,” Robyn Patterson, a White House spokesperson for Biden, said in a statement on Friday.
“Racism has no place in our country. Period.”
The run-up to Tuesday’s election included the biggest rise in US political violence since the 1970s, including some racist attacks on Harris supporters, according to cases identified by Reuters.
Harris, the first woman of colour at the top of a major party ticket, also faced personal attacks, including by Trump, over her race and gender.
Reuters
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