As BLACK ENTERPRISE previously reported, a racist mass text has been received by an untold number of Black people across the country and among that number is the mayor of St. Louis.
According to Fox 2, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones and her son were among those who received the texts which the FBI is currently trying to ascertain the origins of.
Per the St. Louis Mayor’s Office, Jones’ son received a text message on Nov. 7, and the mayor received a similar email on Nov. 9.
A spokesperson from the mayor’s office issued a statement on Jones’ behalf to Fox 2 shortly after the messages were received.
“I’m furious that someone thought it was OK to send messages like that to children, or anyone else. I happened to be with my son when he got it, and I’d seen it before, so I was ready to talk to him and tell him that it was a cruel hoax. It is completely unacceptable that anyone should have to deal with being referred to as property or less than any other human being, especially in a society where Black and Brown people have always been treated as second-class citizens, if we’ve been treated as citizens at all,” the statement read.
The statement continued, “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. I’m afraid it is only going to get worse, as our nation is once again about to have a man at the top of our government who, time and time again, degrades other human beings because of their race, gender, or disability.”
According to The Associated Press, the messages were sent anonymously to recipients in several states, including New York, Alabama, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Tennessee.
The FBI is coordinating its investigation with the Justice Department, and the Federal Communications Commission alongside federal and state law enforcement.
Several officials, including FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel and Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, indicated that the text messages are a concerning use of technology.
According to the AP, in an interview, Brown concluded, “This is an intimidating, threatening use of technology,” which is likely a violation of several laws.
Phone service provider Text Now, which provides their users with phone lines that use various carriers’ existing infrastructure from which to send and receive text messages and phone calls, said in a statement that its service was used to send the text messages.
“As part of our investigation into these messages, we learned they have been sent through multiple carriers across the U.S. and we are working with partners and law enforcement co-operatively to investigate this attack,” the Canada-based company said.
According to Cori Faklaris, an assistant professor of software and information at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the perpetrators likely purchased data from somewhere on the internet for cheap.
“This is the primary way now that most Americans will communicate,” Faklaris said. “So people who need to advertise or market services, they go where the people are. Unfortunately, the scammers and the haters also follow suit.”
Faklaris continued, “All of this means it might be easier than most people realize to make a really good guess about the race or ethnicity of the person attached to that phone number,” Faklaris also added that due to the increased activity from scammers during the pandemic, that it should be “relatively easy for the authorities to trace this particular attack.”
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