CW Racism / death threats to a minor
Frances Carmona, who lives in Grand Rapids, said her 15-year-old niece was one of the recipients of a spam-like text that appears to be targeting people of color across the nation.
“Greetings! You have been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation,” the message read. “PLEASE be ready by 12 am November 15, 2024! NO EXCEPTIONS !! Bring all of your belongs our Exclusive slaves will be there by 11:45 to pick you up in a Large Brown van, Be prepared to get searched and patted down once inside of the plantation A 1st cabin to your right ! -Thank you.”
“Please note that anyone who runs away or doesn’t show up will be killed,” a second text followed.
I made the mistake of going on reddit, and they’re blaming this on Russian trolls. Because of course, Americans just can’t do racist shit without external influence
I will not completely discount the possibility that this is Russia, because that is actually funny as hell. This country is SO RACIST that all that needs to be done to destabilize it is to…pretend to be a racist American.
Like, if this is RUSSIA doing this, this is done because they knew it would work. That’s literally more damning than some random racist schmuck with a texting service account doing this on a whim. “Our country is so racist that some asshole sent shitty texts” is plausible ANYWHERE. “Our country is so racist that our geopolitical rivals are using it against us to cause massive internal turmoil” is SO MUCH WORSE.
Okay, actually, I’ve put a little more thought into this. I think THE MOST likely candidate is the scratched liberal, mad at “betrayal” by the minorities they felt owed them allegiance. Fash wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to use slurs.
Further analysis, and I’ve rethought my most likely candidate:
Mentioned candidates:
Bog-standard lanyard-lib campaign volunteer: has access to phone number lists and basic demographic info from phone banking. Is pissed Kamala lost. Feels betrayed by minorities. Wants to “educate”/“teach a lesson”: you didn’t vote for us so congrats you’re gonna be slaves. Bonus if they can implicate the right wingers in doing a bad thing. Uncomfortable using a slur though, because that’s something that actual racists do, and they’re totally not a racist (they are).
State actor: maximize fear, maximize distrust, inflame tensions–message would probably be more formal (unless this presentation was intended for whatever reason), no reason not to use slurs, theoretically has access to identity info and ability to customize messages, i’d expect being named by name in the message, or even more effectively and dehumanizingly by id# of some sort.
fash: aims to maximize racism/make people feel bad, they’re gonna dig out the bigot’s thesaurus and really go to town. Does have a mild post-fren sort of feel to it.
Other possible:
Neolib: express anger at loss, bonus if inflaming tensions against right wing. Only real difference from the first case is that I’d expect the true die hard neolib to be so into government stuff that this would be more form-letter like. More formal language, more matter-of-fact this-is-happening kinda tone. Probably dropping a Spanish black in there for fun and emphasis. Still doesn’t consider themself racist–at least not racist enough for a hard R, but Kamala only lost because she was a black woman and the party needs to move farther right (is very racist)
weird internet incel centrists (
fans): just want to stir up shit, mad at minorities for making them lose. They’re definitely comfortable slinging soft-Rs around everywhere internally, maybe less so with sending a hard-r publically. Message does read like a poor attempt to sound official, and centrists are notably not good at anything.
My best guess though:
I’m reminded of that purge parody where the masked guy outside the black protagonist’s house at the onset of the purge uses the n-word over the intercom camera and all his friends and himself are taken aback and he apologizes immediately.
Of course. No American would ever be racist. Especially in a way that involved cotton. Not in our nation’s entire ~150 year history!
I blame it on Susan Sarandon