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Law enforcement agencies investigate racist messages sent to African Americans

2024-11-09 14:57:14, Kosova & Bota CNA

Federal and state authorities are investigating racist messages sent anonymously to the cellphones of African-Americans across the country this week telling them they should be enslaved, sparking outrage and criticism.

The civil rights group NAACP said the messages asked recipients in many states, including Alabama, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia, to show up at a plantation to pick cotton, an offensive reference to slavery in the past. African Americans in the United States.

It remains unclear which individuals or entities were behind the reported messages, or how many people received them.

People in at least 21 states received such messages, including high school students and university students, CNN TV and the Associated Press news agency reported.

"These actions are not normal. And we refuse to allow them to be accepted as the norm," NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement from the civil rights organization, which advocates for racial justice and rights for African-Americans. .

"These messages represent an alarming increase in hateful rhetoric from racist groups across the country," he said.

Many in African-American communities say they foresee a rollback of civil rights after Republican Donald Trump, who won Tuesday's presidential election over Democrat Kamala Harris, takes office on January 20. Mr. Trump pledged during his campaign to end federal diversity and inclusion programs.

"President Trump's campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these cellphone messages," his spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Friday.

A poll by the Edison Research firm on Election Day showed Ms. Harris winning 85% of the black vote nationwide while Mr. Trump won 13%, up 1 percentage point from a poll in 2020 when he lost the presidential election to Joe Biden.

"We strongly condemn these messages of hate and anyone who attacks Americans based on their ethnicity or background," Robyn Patterson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement Friday confirming the investigations.

"Racism has no place in our country. Period."

The Federal Communications Commission said Friday it is among the agencies investigating the incidents.

TextNow said one or more accounts on its messaging service sent offensive messages and were shut down within an hour, adding that the messages were sent across multiple carriers nationwide in what it called "an attack," vowing that he would cooperate with law enforcement structures.

Local authorities are also investigating, with some state attorneys general urging recipients to report the messages to their state civil rights divisions.

Some education directorates circulated warnings and asked students and parents to report such messages to school staff or local authorities./ VOA