Nationwide racist texts spark major federal probe ahead of inauguration

Federal agencies started looking into offensive messages sent to Black Americans across 21 states through TextNow service. Messages contained racist statements about plantation work‚ targeting students and general public

November 8 2024 , 08:18 PM  •  519 views

Nationwide racist texts spark major federal probe ahead of inauguration

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

NAACP President Derrick Johnson stated

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