In at least twenty states, African-Americans received messages this week promising them a return to slavery on cotton plantations. Several investigations have been opened.
“You were selected to collect cotton from the nearest plantation. […] Our slave finders will come pick you up in a brown van. Be prepared to be searched when you arrive at the plantation. You are in group 7 of the plantation.” As soon as the result of the American presidential election was known on Wednesday, November 7, Tayala, a black resident of New Jersey, received this anonymous text message on her phone. The next day, it was in her mailbox this time that she was told that she was going to become a slave and that she was being called a “Negro”.
Tayala's story, highlighted by CNN, is far from isolated: after the election of Donald Trump, a whole wave of racist acts of this type fell on the United States . Across the country, in at least twenty states, African-Americans received the same style of text messages as the one received by Tayala. Students enrolled at three black universities (Hampton, Fisk and Claflin) reported the same malicious messages. Each time it came from an unknown or anonymous number. They appear to have been sent through TextNow, a company that allows you to send text messages anonymously. The latter announced “work with your colleagues to block any attempt to send this type of message.”
Racists 'feel encouraged' by Trump's election
In several states, local justice has announced the opening of investigations to try to understand who was behind these racist messages. “The FBI is aware of offensive and racist text messages sent to individuals across the country and is in contact with the Department of Justice and other federal authorities regarding this matter”the agency even declared in a press release on Thursday.
For the president of the Association for the Defense of Civil Rights in the United States (NCAAP), Derrick Johnson, these messages are “the unfortunate consequence” of the election of a “president who historically always embraced and encouraged hatred. “These posts represent an alarming increase in vile and abhorrent rhetoric from racist groups across the country who now feel emboldened to spread hatred and fan the flames of fear many of us feel after the results Tuesday »he told CNN. In response, the spokesperson for Trump's campaign assured that he had not “nothing to do with these SMS”.
Until the end of the Civil War in 1865, hundreds of thousands of Africans were deported to the United States and forced to work as slaves on plantations, particularly cotton plantations. Although slavery was officially abolished in 1865, racial segregation continued in part of the country until the 1960s.
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