In the two days following the US presidential election, which was held in an extremely tense climate, African-American residents reported receiving anonymous racist text messages.
According to the NAACP, a leading African-American rights organization, black residents in North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama and Pennsylvania received messages asking them to “show up at a plantation to pick cotton”. A reference to the country's slavery past that the organization strongly condemned.
Racist text messages
“The sad reality of having elected a president who has historically embraced, and sometimes encouraged, (speech of) hate is materializing before our eyes,” said Derrick Johnson, head of the NAACP.
The sender of these messages is not known but the FBI (federal police) indicated that they were “aware” of this campaign “Racist text messages”, without specifying whether he had opened an investigation.
The American press also reported on Thursday racist text messages sent to African-American students in several states, some of which were signed by “a Trump supporter”. “You have been selected to be a house slave at Abingdon Plantation,” can we read on a screen capture of one of these messages relayed on social networks.
“Hate” and “racism”
“These people feel like they are growing wings to say out loud what they have always thought quietly,” wrote Joshua Martin, the Internet user who posted this screenshot.
“The message sent to young African Americans, including students at the University of Alabama, is a public display of hatred and racism that mocks our civil rights past”condemned Margaret Huang, head of the rights group Southern Poverty Law Center.
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11,447 hate crimes in 2023
Donald Trump campaigned using increasingly authoritarian and racist rhetoric, especially towards migrants. This did not prevent him from gaining a few points with African-American voters.
In 2023, there were 11,447 hate crimes recorded in the United States, according to the FBI, with more than half motivated by ethnicity. Since 2020, at least 30% of these crimes have targeted African Americans.
Between 1525 and 1866, more than 12.5 million Africans were forced across the Atlantic as part of the slave trade, including to work on cotton plantations in the United States.
