“You were selected to be a slave,” the despicable text message campaign targeting black people in the United States

Donald Trump won the United States presidential election for the second time following the vote held on Tuesday, November 5 in an extremely tense climate. In the two days following the election, black residents in several states reported receiving anonymous racist text messages, indicates HuffPost. And this, in the four corners of the country: Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Virginia, New York, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin.

According to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP, an African-American rights organization), the messages told recipients that they had been selected for… slavery. The local media 13News Now published the contents of one of these SMS: “You have been selected to harvest cotton from the nearest plantation. Be ready at 12 o’clock sharp with your belongings. Our executive slaves will pick you up in a brown van. Be prepared to be searched once you enter the plantation. You are in plantation group W.”

The FBI reacts

Examples of this type of text flood social networks. “You have been selected to be a house slave at Abingdon Plantation”we can read on a screenshot of one of these messages, signed “The Trump Administration”, when others come from “A Trump Supporter”.

A large portion of the target recipients of this campaign are black students. At this time, the identity of the sender(s) is not yet known. The FBI, the United States’ domestic intelligence service, said it was “aware” of this matter and “in contact with the Department of Justice and other federal authorities regarding this matter”. He recommends that the population report any threat of violence to him.

The messages, which reference the country’s slavery past, were strongly condemned by the NAACP. “The sad reality of having elected a president who has historically embraced and sometimes encouraged hate speech is materializing before our eyes”said Derrick Johnson, executive director of the association. As a reminder, according to Le Figaroin 2023, 11,447 hate crimes were recorded in the United States. Since 2020, at least 30% of these crimes have targeted African Americans.