Federal and state authorities are investigating a wave of racist text messages sent anonymously that have spread alarm among Black Americans.
The messages urged recipients in multiple states, including Alabama, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia, to report to a plantation to pick cotton, an offensive reference to past enslavement of Black people in the United States.
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It is unclear who is behind the reported texts, how many people had received them, or how the recipients were targeted.
Monèt Miller, an Atlanta-based publicist, said that when she shared on social media that she had received a text message telling her to report to her “nearest plantation,” she was shocked at how many other Black Americans chimed in to say they had gotten similar messages.
“To find out that all these African American people are getting it, that was the scariest part about it,” she said. “Who is doing that?”
The Federal Communications Commission said on Friday its enforcement bureau was among those probing the incidents.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, told Reuters on Friday that her office is investigating the text messages, adding that some targets — herself included — also received emails.
Ms Murrill, who is white, said one of the messages hit her personal email box after 8am on Friday local time.
((ABC News)