Simply hours after Donald Trump’s election win on Tuesday, Black individuals throughout the US reported receiving racist textual content messages telling them that they’d been “chosen” to select cotton and wanted to report back to “the closest plantation”. Whereas the texts, a few of which have been signed “a Trump supporter”, assorted intimately, all of them conveyed the identical important message about being chosen to select cotton. Among the messages consult with the recipients by title.
A spokesperson for the president-elect advised CNN that his “marketing campaign has completely nothing to do with these textual content messages”. It’s not but clear who’s behind the messages, neither is there a complete listing of the individuals to whom the messages have been despatched, however social media posts point out that the messages are widespread.
Black individuals in states together with Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, the DC space and elsewhere reported receiving the messages. The messages have been despatched to Black adults and college students, together with to excessive schoolers in Massachusetts and New York, and college students at traditionally Black faculties and universities (HBCUs), comparable to Alabama State College and different faculties, together with ones throughout Ohio, Clemson College, the College of Alabama and Missouri State. No less than six center faculty college students in Pennsylvania acquired the messages, in response to the AP.
Authorities together with the FBI and attorneys basic are investigating the messages.
“The FBI is conscious of the offensive and racist textual content messages despatched to people across the nation and is involved with the Justice Division and different federal authorities on the matter,” the FBI stated on Thursday.
On Thursday, the NAACP condemned the messages.
“The unlucky actuality of electing a President who, traditionally has embraced, and at instances inspired hate, is unfolding earlier than our eyes. These messages signify an alarming enhance in vile and abhorrent rhetoric from racist teams throughout the nation, who now really feel emboldened to unfold hate and stoke the flames of concern that many people are feeling after Tuesday’s election outcomes,” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson stated in an announcement.
“We’ve stated it earlier than and we’ll say it once more – there is no such thing as a place for hate in a democracy. The menace — and the point out of slavery in 2024 — just isn’t solely deeply disturbing, however perpetuates a legacy of evil that dates again to earlier than the Jim Crow period, and now seeks to forestall Black Individuals from having fun with the identical freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.
Brian Hughes, of the Trump marketing campaign, advised NBC that they’d take authorized motion “If we will discover the origin of those messages which promote this sort of ugliness in our title.”
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“President Trump constructed a various and broad coalition of help, with voters of all races and backgrounds,” he stated in an announcement to NBC. “The end result was a landslide victory for his widespread sense mandate for change. This may lead to a second time period that’s useful to each working man and lady in our nation.”
NBC reported that Brian Hughes, of the Trump marketing campaign, threatened authorized motion “If we will discover the origin of those messages which promote this sort of ugliness in our title.”
“President Trump constructed a various and broad coalition of help, with voters of all races and backgrounds,” he stated in an announcement to NBC. “The end result was a landslide victory for his widespread sense mandate for change. This may lead to a second time period that’s useful to each working man and lady in our nation.”