Dauphin County residents are among an unknown number of Black people across the country who received racist text messages claiming they were chosen to pick cotton the day after Donald J. Trump was elected president.
William Hines, who used to coach football at Central Dauphin East High School, said that he, his mother, his daughter, and a few other students from the school got the following text message:
“How are you?
You have been chosen to pick cotton at the plantation that is closest to you. Please be ready at 5 p.m. on November 7th. SHARP with your things.
Our Office Slaves in a Black SUV will come to your address.
Do not be surprised if you are found after entering.
Wednesday around 2 p.m., the texts were sent.
When PennLive called the number that sent Hines the text message, it went straight to voicemail. The number had been “Disconnected or no longer in service,” as shown by a dial-up sound that played before the text message.
The number appears to be calling from Airville, Pennsylvania, according to caller ID.
“I thought we got through a lot of these problems in our country…” Hines told PennLive, “Divide, skin color, and race.” “Even the way you feel about politics—it is a huge gap.” It is very sad.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the oldest civil rights group in the United States. Hines said he is in touch with the Lancaster branch of that group. He said that they are leading the charge to look into and deal with the problem.
The office of the attorney general for Pennsylvania said it is aware of “mass text messages” going around the state and the country.
A spokesperson told PennLive in an email, “This kind of hateful behavior, which only serves to spread hate and cause division, is strongly condemned by our office.”
The office would not say anything about whether or not the messages were being looked into, but it did say that it is “in contact with law enforcement partners.”
AL.com says that black students at the University of Alabama and Samford University got the same text messages. The area codes in those texts came from both inside and outside of Alabama.
When people called those numbers, they were connected to “TextNow,” a service that lets people make fake phone numbers that can not be traced.
WCNC in Charlotte, Virginia, said that two people got the same text message:
Say hello to Samuel,
You have been chosen to pick cotton at the plantation that is closest to you.
Get your things ready right on time at noon.
In a brown van, our executive slaves will come get you.
As soon as you enter the plantation, be ready to be found.
“You are in Plantation Group W.”
Names were used in the text messages, and each person in the “plantation group” got a different letter.
The attorney general of Virginia spoke out against the messages and said that they are being looked into.
At the same time, text messages were being sent to students at South Carolina’s Clemson University.
PennLive asked the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General for comment, but they did not answer right away.
The national press office for the FBI said it knew about the texts and told people to tell their local police about any threats of violence.
An FBI spokesman said, “The FBI is aware of the racist and offensive text messages sent to people across the country and is in touch with the Justice Department and other federal authorities about the matter.”
Fran Chardo, the district attorney for Dauphin County, called the text messages “awful,” but he said his office has not heard anything about them yet. His office will look into them as soon as they send him a report.
As of 2018, hate crimes in Pennsylvania are called “ethnic intimidation” and are defined as crimes done out of dislike or hostility toward a victim’s race, color, religion, or national origin.
You can not be charged with ethnic intimidation by itself; it has to go along with another crime, like harassment.
