Reports have been flooding in of Black people across the United States receiving disturbing text messages referencing slavery and “picking cotton”, following Donald Trump’s presidential election win. These racist messages have been reported in over a dozen states, including California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, and Alabama, as per CNN. The messages, sent anonymously, instructed recipients to report to a “plantation” or board a bus, sparking widespread alarm and prompting investigations by the FBI and other agencies.

The messages often instruct recipients to report to a specific address, sometimes mentioning the incoming presidential administration. Some even target children, with reports of middle school students receiving these hateful messages. For instance, a 16-year-old girl in California received a text directing her to report to a “plantation” in North Carolina.

A friend in San Francisco received this racist text today, and after looking on social media, it seems many Black people are receiving it too. pic.twitter.com/eDyFf3a6Ix

— John Ryan E (@RyanElward) November 7, 2024

The FBI is working with the Justice Department to address these incidents, while the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is investigating alongside federal and state law enforcement. TextNow, the platform through which some of these messages were sent, told CNN this is a “widespread, coordinated attack”. 

FBI Statement on Offensive and Racist Text Messageshttps://t.co/vpQYAO6LT7 pic.twitter.com/iDtN36WhX4

— FBI (@FBI) November 7, 2024

”TextNow is working alongside our industry partners to uncover more details and continue to monitor patterns to actively block any new accounts attempting to send these messages. We do not tolerate or condone the use of our service to send harassing or spam messages and will work with the authorities to prevent these individuals from doing so in the future,” the company said. 

Civil rights organisations, including NAACP, one of the largest Black civil rights organisations in the US, have condemned these messages. The Southern Poverty Law Center has also weighed in, calling the messages “deeply disturbing” 

”We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – there is no place for hate in a democracy. The threat — and the mention of slavery in 2024 — is not only deeply disturbing, but perpetuates a legacy of evil that dates back to before the Jim Crow era, and now seeks to prevent Black Americans from enjoying the same freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness,” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a press release. 

Whoever is sending the racist text messages is using anonymizing software to obscure their location, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told CNN on Friday. 

A man has been awarded 352,000 pounds (Rs 3.75 crore approx), as compensation for being held captive and enslaved by a wealthy family, the Rooneys, for over two decades, according to The Metro. The victim, known only as ‘Victim A’, was subjected to unimaginable cruelty, forced to live in squalid caravans on the family’s traveller site in Lincolnshire.

The Rooney family is alleged to have been running a regime of terror for over twenty years, exploiting vulnerable homeless men. Some were brutally pounded while being made to work for little or no wages, accommodated in pathetic conditions where their basic requirements remained neglected. Some were even told that they would be killed if they refused to comply with their demands.

According to theNews Outlet,Photographs of the caravans show a shocking image of privation with dirty beds, no food, and unsanitary conditions. Moreover, the captors also frequently fed the victims with scraps and treated them in contempt.

Fifteen other men who shared that fate ended up dying before justice could be served. During this, the Rooney family had amassed a fortune of more than 1.5 million pounds while their victims were enduring unimaginable suffering.

In 2017, eleven members of this family were imprisoned for combined 79 years for their crimes. Their heinous acts still lead to devastating consequences in the lives of those victims.

The 352,000 pounds compensation to be paid to Victim A will go some way toward underpinning his financial security, enabling him to receive the necessary care. This, however, cannot in any way be held to remove the years of torment they all suffered at the hands of their captors.

Image for representation purpose only.
| Photo Credit: K. Pichumani

Two Indian nationals have been arrested for allegedly enslaving 33 farm labourers, all from India, in Italy’s Verona Province, according to a media report, weeks after the country was shocked by the tragic death of a Sikh farm worker who bled to death.

Finance police also seized assets worth 4,75,000 euros from the suspects, who own two agricultural sector companies with no employees on the books and are allegedly total tax evaders, ANSA news agency reported on July 13.

The two alleged gangmasters were arrested on July 13 and are under investigation for crimes, including enslavement and labour exploitation, the Italian news agency said.

The issue of modern forms of slavery in Italy recently came to the fore of media attention following the case of 31-year-old Sikh farm labourer Satnam Singh, who bled to death after being abandoned by his employer after a strawberry wrapping machine severed his arm in Lazio, near Rome, last month.

Singh, who was an Indian national, died due to “copious bleeding”, the ANSA news agency earlier reported.

On June 26, India asked Italy to take prompt action against those responsible for Singh’s death.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said last month that Singh, one of thousands of Indian immigrants who work the fields in the country, was the victim of “inhuman acts”.

“These are inhumane acts that do not belong to the Italian people. I hope that this barbarity will be punished harshly,” she said following a Cabinet meeting.

Gangmastering and the often violent exploitation of migrant farm labourers is a chronic problem in Italy, especially in the south of the country.

Latina hosts thousands of immigrant labourers, many of them Sikhs, working picking fruit and vegetables for the local ‘agro-mafia’, according to Italian media reports.

Workplace accident insurance agency INAIL said recently that fatal accidents in Italy had risen by four to 268 in the first four months of this year.

There were about 100 last year, it said.