Terror Messaging
[ Making sense of racist text messages targeting Black U.S. citizens a day after the elections. ]
It’s been more than a week since Nov. 6th, 2024 and still no new developments regarding the racist text messages sent the day after U.S. elections. These texts from unknown senders, invoking slavery were sent specifically to Black U.S. citizens following the victory of Donald Trump. Among these recipients were kids ranging from college to middle school students. The wording varied but all messages informed recipients to prepare and report to a plantation for slave labor. Local and federal authorities report these messages were sent to at least 30 of 50 U.S. states, among them New York, California, Alabama, Missouri, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and the nation’s capital, District of Columbia.
The FBI, along with justice and communications agencies, are investigating how the phone numbers were collected and who the messages came from. But it’s apparently easier said than done. In a statement to CNN a few days after, Louisiana Attorney General, Liz Murrill said, whoever is sending these messages is doing so through anonymizing software to obscure their location. And TextNow, the company through which some of these messages were sent out, has concluded this was a “widespread coordinated attack,” implying the use of various locations and participants. One assistant professor of software and information services at the University of North Carolina, theorizes the senders likely purchased the collection of personal data online (from data brokers), and then inputted that and other data into machine-learning algorithms to attain info on demographics.
“It points to a well-organized and resourced group that has decided to target Americans on our home soil based on the color of our skin,” Missouri NAACP President , Nimrod Chapel said in a statement after Black students at Missouri State University received variations of the same surreal yet infuriating text message, informing them they have been selected for slavery. I think most would agree with Chapel. This doesn’t appear to be a spontaneous, last minute prank from bigots drunk off Trump’s victory. This seems calculated and prepared in advance in the case the elections swung in Trump’s favor. Or maybe it would’ve been sent out regardless but the main point being, it feels pre-planned. And orchestrated by persons who know how to cover their tracks.
Given these circumstances, one can understand the difficulty that authorities face as they attempt to identify who’s behind the digital disruption. But as they continue their investigation, I’ve been reflecting on the exact nature of this attack. Asking myself what just happened? Because while the realities of racism are sadly not unfamiliar, the use of hate speech through coordinated robotexts, to distribute widespread racist rhetoric is a new line crossed. I think that’s worth noting. The response to, and the lessons gathered from this tech/cyber hate crime, will have a direct effect on how repeatable these text threats become going forward. Especially moving into a second Trump presidency. These messages could have easily targeted Latin U.S. citizens and threatened deportation, or Jewish U.S. citizens instructing them to report to concentration camps. No matter who was targeted, this is not something any of us should consider normal.
And while these messages have been condemned by various Attorney Generals in recipient states, and the investigative agencies — As well as the communications companies, whose services were manipulated to employ this attack — I’ve yet to see any statement from the current White House administration. Nor has anyone related the distribution of these offensive, fear-inciting text messages to terrorism. Chapel’s statement hints at just that, but newsmedia and the authorities are much more reserved in their assessment.
On that Wednesday, parents of children who received these alarming texts were understandably anxious and highly concerned — Some messages mentioned their child by name, with details of a specific van that will appear at a specified time to collect their child for slave labor. Beyond the threat of kidnapping, which is a nightmare all on its own, the deliberate timing of the message after Trump’s victory, coupled with the hyper effect of widespread distribution across the country, used terror to heightened the fears of Black Americans who received these openly racist messages and weren’t sure what to expect. The tone of the messages do aim at some form of twisted humor, but there’s nothing funny about the accompanying inferences that one is potentially being surveilled, and that one, or one’s children might be taken.
Via screenshots captured online, some of the messages did claim to be associated with Trump but Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump Campaign flatout rejected any association: “The campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these messages.” Truthfully, the origins and motives behind the racial terror attack remain unknown, with foreign agents not being ruled out. The motives might even be Anti-Trump but pro-division and pro-racial tension. Nevertheless, regardless of who the messages are from, or their affiliated politics, their weaponization of Trump’s victory seems quite evident. And not that anyone would expect them to, but the Trump campaign has likewise not condemned nor remarked on the nature of these messages.
It’s very likely no one truly believed that they would be enslaved upon receiving these texts. But the general feeling from recipients who spoke to the news is that it’s frightening to be singled out and have your sense of security shaken. To potentially have an unidentified watcher who has obtained personal information about you or your children; who utilizes hate speech to attempt to humiliate or threaten you on the basis of your ethnic background — It’s far from the type of Wednesday any U.S. citizen signs up for. And regardless of how much you love free speech and want it protected, there’s no constitutional demand that Americans en masse must receive targeted, offensive messages of hate.
When you factor in the most common group targeted for hate crimes in the U.S. are Black Americans, according to hate crime statistics, then the psychological buttons pressed by these specific messages to their intended recipients, become even more malicious. In recent years alone, mass shootings in Jacksonville FL, Buffalo NY, and Charleston SC, all carried out by White Supremacists who cite racial hatred as a motivation, becomes a thicker cloud of anxiety looming in the air. The rise of fringe conspiracies like “The Great Replacement Theory” (which each of the aforementioned racial-terrorists seemingly drew inspiration from), are further let loose on society by “softer” mainstream adoptions of the same idea. All xenophobic at their core but while Fox News latches on to fears of immigrant waves that will replace current voting demographics, White national extremists sink their teeth into specific fears that elite Black and Jewish conspirators are seeking their national annihilation, or in their own words “white genocide.”
The senders, whoever they may be, not only knew who would receive these messages, but counted on the emotional distress enhanced by the current political climate. All through a blend of layered ambiguity and obvious, bigoted intention. So in its fullest context, it’s likely not at all out of line to relate these texts to acts of terrorism. That said, I do understand terrorism is often defined by a political aim, usually spelled out by the terrorist(s) themselves. So long as the senders remain unknown, no such thing exists in this case and yet, it’s observably political. Whether it was an Anti-Trump statement using Black citizens as collateral damage, or bigoted nationalists celebrating the return of their king, or even foreign agents looking to spark friction in the U.S., the radioactive hum of politics is never completely tuned out.
The effect that these coordinated racist attacks have had on the Americans who received them, again some of whom aren’t even old enough to drink or vote, is important to acknowledge. It helps us understand what the attack truly was. An attempt to undermine the recipient’s value and security, not only as an American citizen, but also as a human being.
As a result, initial recipients in at least 30 states weren’t sure if they were safe. At the end of the day that’s what this new, abnormal attack achieved. Is it the same as a mass bomb threat? A bomb threat would immediately (and very correctly) qualify as terror messaging. Obviously, there are distinctions but in observing perhaps the intrusivity of these hate messages, I hope they aren’t summed up to a kind of inconvenient spam — Which undersells their effect and intent. There’s a difference between an anon sending a message saying they hate you, and an anon saying you’re going to be collected against your will. Both messages are awful but one implies actions planned against you. This analogy isn’t perfect but these racist texts are more like sending survivors of bombings, twisted messages informing them they’ve been selected to be hostages. If that ever were to happen, in my opinion, it would fall under the same nightmarish category. The name we ascribe to either or both, however, is secondary to recognizing the gravity of the action itself.
Sources:
CNN: ‘Here’s What We Know’ Article (Sun. Nov 10, 2024) , PBS: Article Fri. Nov 8, 2024), Washington Post: ‘After Election…’ Article (Thurs. Nov 7, 2024), Word in Black: ‘Racist Text Surge…’ (Wed. Nov 13, 2024), The Guardian: ‘A Deadly Ideology…The Great Replacement Theory…’, PBS: ‘What is Great Replacement Theory and How Does it Fuel Racist Violence’
Since writing this, reports of new terror messages sent to Hispanic and LBGTQ communities have also begun to surface. See report here and for a CBS segment on how our personal information might be too accessible for nefarious use watch this and maybe this 2022 Data Brokers episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
