Racist texts sent to Black students nationwide also target St. Louis mayor’s son
Black students at schools and universities across the country, including the son of Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, have received text messages telling them they had been selected to "pick cotton at the nearest plantation."
Jones on Thursday morning posted on Facebook that her son received one of the mass texts a day earlier. Several of the messages were personalized by name.
The message read: "Greetings, you have been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation. Be ready at 1:00 pm SHARP with your belongings. Our Executive Slaves will come get you in a Brown Van, be prepared to be searched down once you've enter (sic) the plantation. You are in Plantation Group C. Good day."
Jones was with her son when he received the text, and she had seen a similar message circulated by another parent.
"I'm furious that someone thought it was OK to send messages like that to children, or anyone else," she said in a statement. "I was ready to talk to him and tell him that it was a cruel hoax."
She wrote on Facebook that she had no idea how the sender got her son's number.
Students in Virginia, North and South Carolina, Ohio and Alabama — at schools including Clemson, Alabama State, University of Alabama and Ohio State University — have reported receiving similar racist messages either right before or after Election Day. The Columbus Dispatch shared a screenshot of one such message that was signed, "A Trump Supporter." Other messages referenced the Ku Klux Klan.
"The fact that this message is going around is a reminder that we still have a lot of work to do to get rid of this kind of ugliness in our country," Jones said in her statement.
Various agencies are trying to trace the source of the messages. Calls to some of the numbers went to an automatic voicemail referencing "TextNow," a service that allows users to create an untraceable phone number, according to a report in the Patriot-News in Pennsylvania.
Arleta McCall, whose daughter is a freshman at the University of Alabama, received a text from her Wednesday morning saying she wanted to come home. Her daughter then sent her the screenshot of the racist message.
"This is not a phone call you want to receive when you are two and a half hours away," said McCall, a St. Louis native who now lives in Alabama.
McCall immediately called her daughter, who asked if she should go to her 1 p.m. class because the "pick up" time on the text said 1 p.m. Her mother told her to stay in her room. She called the university administration, which had received multiple calls that morning from others who were sent similar messages.
The university that evening sent an email to McCall and other parents who had contacted the administration.
"Thank you for reaching out about this. This message is disgusting, and it has been reported to authorities. We are encouraging anyone who may have information on who or what may have generated these messages to report it to the appropriate authorities," the email said.
McCall is worried about how the sender was able to get her daughter's cell number. She asked the university if there was a data breach but has not received any more information.
"The fact that it's the day after the election, that is scary," she said, citing hateful comments made at Trump rallies before the election.
In another incident on Wednesday, at Texas State University, two men were filmed holding up misogynistic and homophobic signs on campus that included messages such as, "Types of Property: women, slaves, animals." They drew a crowd of counter-protesters and left after about an hour, according to news reports.
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