TEMPLE, Texas (KWTX) – The FBI is now investigating a series of anonymous text messages after Black Americans across the country reported receiving racist text messages the day after the election.
Although the disturbing messages varied, they all instructed people to board a bus or vehicle that would take them to a plantation where they would work as slaves.
Temple resident Charlotte Green said she was unfortunately one of many targeted by the racist mass texts and says she couldn’t believe what she saw when she received the message last Wednesday.
Racist text messages sent to a hundred black Americans(Charlotte Green)
“I just got home from work and when I got in my car, I was looking at my phone, and I was driving and I… I thought, ‘This can’t be real.’ So I stopped and I was like…I was mortified,” Green said.
And she wasn’t alone… hundreds of people in at least 20 states received similar, racist messages.
But for Green it was deeply personal, expressing that “it wasn’t boilerplate, but it had my name on it.”
So she decided to share it on her Facebook, hoping to show what she and other people of color have to go through.
“I wanted people to just see what it feels like, you know, how would you feel if you got something like this,” Green said.
Like many others, she wonders who would take the time to send all these messages and why.
Green explained, “I think the election created all this unrest and made people feel comfortable, you know, showing racism.”
A Central Texas woman claims she received a racist text message in the aftermath of the general election
Preliminary investigation suggests the messages may have come from TextNow, an automation service headquartered in Canada that allows users to set up a phone number so they can send messages for free without showing the sender’s phone number.
In a statement, TextNow said that one or more of its accounts may have been used to send text messages in violation of their terms of service, and that they immediately closed the accounts.
It is still unknown who sent the messages, but former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency chief of staff Kiersten Todt told CBS News that it is likely more than just one person.
“It looks like this is a huge operation. Really, if you want to undermine our culture right now, our society, the best way to do that is to make us fight among ourselves,” Todt said.
And Green says that’s exactly what it does. “I thought we had come this far, but I realized we are still stuck,” she said.
According to Green, she did report it to the Temple Police Department, which said the FBI is investigating.
In a statement from the FBI, KWTX told: “The FBI is aware of the offensive and racist text messages sent to individuals across the country and is in contact with the Department of Justice and other federal authorities regarding this matter. As always, we encourage the public to report threats of physical violence to local law enforcement authorities.”
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