racist text message campaign targets African-Americans after Donald Trump's election

The FBI announced that it was “aware” of this campaign of anonymous messages, without specifying whether it had opened an investigation.

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.

“The sad reality of having elected a president who has historically embraced, and sometimes encouraged, [les discours de] hatred materializes before our eyes”declared Derrick Johnson, head of the NAACP. The sender of these messages is not known but the FBI announced 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 SMS 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 screenshot of one of these messages relayed on social networks. “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.