Federal investigators are checking-out mass texts that targeted Black communities this week‚ with messages containing racist plantation-related content. The texts reached people in twenty-one states including students from high-schools and colleges
Derrick Johnson from NAACP spoke about these text-messages which made offensive references to cotton picking: these attacks hit multiple regions like Alabama North Carolina Pennsylvania and Virginia. TextNow (the messaging platform used for this) shut-down related accounts within an hour saying it was some kind of cyber-attack
The political timing is interesting - coming right after Donald Trump won against Kamala Harris in tuesdayʼs election. Trumpʼs team quickly denied any connection to these messages; his spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt made that clear. The voting numbers show Harris got 85% of Black votes while Trump got thirteen percent (just one percent more than last time)
- FBI started checking message sources
- FCC enforcement team joined the probe
- State attorneys want people to report these texts
- School districts sent warnings to parents
These actions are not normal And we refuse to let them be normalized
White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson made things clear: “Racism has no place in our country Period“. Local police departments and state officials are working together - looking at civil rights violations while school staff helps students who got these messages
The whole situation fits into a bigger picture - its the largest jump in political problems since the 70s with some attacks targeting Harris supporters during her campaign