Racist text messages referencing slavery are causing alarm in many states

WASHINGTON (AP) — Racist text messages evoking slavery have sparked nationwide alarm after being sent to Black men, women and students, including middle schoolers, this week. FBI and other agencies.

The anonymously sent messages were reported in many states. new York, Alabama, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania And Tennessee. They often used a similar tone but their expressions were different.

Some instructed the buyer to arrive at an address “with your belongings” at a specific time, while others did not specify a location. Some talked about the incoming presidential administration.

It was not yet clear who was behind the messages, and there was no comprehensive list of where the messages were sent, but the recipients included high school and college students.

The FBI said it has been in contact with the Justice Department about the messages and that the Federal Communications Commission is investigating the texts “alongside federal and state law enforcement.” The Ohio Attorney General’s Office also said it was investigating the matter.

Tasha Dunham of Lodi, California, said her 16-year-old daughter showed her one of the messages before basketball practice Wednesday night.

Not only did the text use her daughter’s name, but it also directed her to report to a “plantation” in North Carolina, which Dunham said they never lived in. When they looked at the address, they saw that it was the location of a museum.

“It was very disturbing,” Dunham said. “Is everyone trying to figure out what all this means to me? So I definitely had a lot of fear and anxiety.

Her daughter initially thought it was a joke, but emotions were running high following Tuesday’s incident. presidential election. Dunham and her family thought this could have been more nefarious and reported it to local law enforcement.

“I was not in slavery. My mother was not a slave. But we’re a few generations away. So when you think about how cruel and awful slavery was to our people, it’s a very scary and concerning situation,” Dunham said.

About six middle school students in Pennsylvania’s Montgomery County also received the messages, said Megan Shafer, acting superintendent of the Lower Merion School District.

“The racist nature of these text messages is deeply disturbing, and the fact that children are being targeted is even more disturbing,” he wrote in a letter to parents.

Students at some major universities, including Clemson in South Carolina and the University of Alabama, said they received the messages. The Clemson Police Department said in a statement that it had been notified of “deplorable racially motivated text and email messages” and encouraged anyone who received these messages to report them.

Fisk University, a historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee, issued a statement calling messages targeting some of its students “deeply troubling.” He encouraged students to remain calm and assured them that the texts were likely coming from bots or malicious actors with “no real intent or credibility.”

Missouri NAACP President Nimrod Chapel said black students who are members of the organization’s Missouri State University chapter have received messages mentioning Trump’s victory and calling them by name “chosen to pick cotton” next Tuesday. Chapel said police in the southeast Missouri city of Springfield, where the university is located, were notified.

“This points to a well-organized and resourced group who decided to target Americans on our own soil based on the color of our skin,” Chapel said in a statement.

Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland also sent an email to parents saying “many students” had received text messages containing “racist threats.”

“Local law enforcement and the FBI are aware of these messages, and law enforcement in some areas have announced that they are treating the messages as low-level threats,” the email said.

“Wireless providers are aware of these threatening spam messages and are working aggressively to block them and the numbers they originate from,” said Nick Ludlum, senior vice president of wireless industry trade group CTIA.

David Brody, director of the Digital Justice Initiative at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said they are not sure who is behind the messages, but they estimate they were sent to more than 10 states, including most of the Southern state of Maryland. , Oklahoma and even the District of Columbia. The region’s Metropolitan Police force said in a statement that its intelligence unit was investigating the origin of the message.

Brody said a number of civil rights laws can be applied to hate-related incidents. Leaders of several other civil rights organizations condemned the messages, including Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center. in question“Hate speech has no place in the South or in our nation.”

“The threat — and the mention of slavery in 2024 — is not only deeply troubling, it perpetuates a legacy of evil that pre-dates the Jim Crow era and now seeks to prevent Black Americans from enjoying the same freedom to pursue lives of freedom and happiness,” said NAACP President and CEO by Derrick Johnson. “These actions are not normal. And we refuse to allow them to be normalized.”

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Associated Press reporter Summer Ballentine contributed to this report from Jefferson City, Missouri.

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