Feds Investigate Vile Texts to Black Americans Claiming They’ve Been ‘Selected To Pick Cotton’
The FCC and FBI are investigating a spate of racist text messages telling Black Americans they’ve been “selected to pick cotton,” per reporting from NBC News reporter Zinhle Essamuah.
“Social media sites have been flooded with people from New York to Florida who say they’ve gotten these racist messages.” Essamuah told MSNBC’s Ana Cabrera Reports on Friday before adding that that one woman she interviewed believed the texts may have been sparked by “the current political climate.”
“It was this odd, ominous-feeling text message, basically saying, ‘Hello, you’ve been selected to be a slave on a plantation and you’re scheduled to get picked up at 12:00 A.M. On November 13th,'” the woman said. “I think that this is intentional to scare people of color, Black people, into a reality that we don’t want to go back to.”
Essamuah explained, “The wording of the texts appear to differ,” continuing:
Some have misspellings, others address individuals by name. But the theme is consistent, telling recipients they’ve been selected to pick cotton. All of the people NBC news spoke to who got these messages are Black. Several universities confirmed their students have reported receiving the texts. Clemson says they came from numbers associated with online spoofing sites. It remains unclear who is behind the messages. TextNow, which offers free phone numbers online, tells NBC News at least one of its accounts may be involved, writing in a statement, in part, “We do not tolerate or condone the use of our service to send harassing or spam messages,” adding they shut down the accounts and are working with authorities.
Essamuah added that “some messages appear to reference President-elect Donald Trump by name” and “some falsely claim to be from a Trump administration official.”
The Trump camp denied any involvement and, in a statement, said that “If we can find the origin of these messages which promote this kind of ugliness in our name, we will obviously take legal action to stop it.”
Watch the clip above via MSNBC.
