Since Election Day, racist text messages have been sent to African Americans nationwide, including San Francisco public school students and young people in the city.
NBC Bay Area reports the text messages targeted Black students and addressed them by their full name, telling them to report to plantations to pick cotton.
David Bromfield, an AP government teacher at San Francisco’s Raoul Wallenberg High School, said multiple students received the racist texts, including a student of his who is Black and Latino. The message came from a 415 San Francisco area code.
“[The text] said she was going to be picked up by a brown van on Masonic Street, which actually borders our campus, and taken back to the cotton fields,” Bromfield told The Standard in an email.
The student showed it to her mother, who told her to delete it, he said.
Bromfield said the student who reported the text to him seemed “more perplexed” than upset about the author’s identity and how the author knew the students’ race.
He said students at his school were already in distress after Trump won the presidency Tuesday night, referring to “numerous students whose immigration status makes them potential targets of Trump’s threats.” The racist text messages further exacerbated the strain on students, he said.
In a joint letter, SFUSD Superintendent Dr. Maria Su, DCYF Acting Executive Director Sherrice Dorsey-Smith, and NAACP President Rev. Amos Brown stated that San Francisco is “a beacon for diversity and inclusion” and that hate will not be tolerated in the city.
Recipients of the troubling text messages are encouraged to contact local law enforcement, the FBI, or the Federal Trade Commission to report the messages and help block similar communications in the future.
“The FBI is now investigating racially motivated texts sent the day after the election, with many people, including college students, receiving messages directing them to ‘pick cotton at the nearest plantation,’ according to examples provided by recipients and confirmed to be real texts by the FBI,” the agency said.
The text messages are suspected of being generated by AI.
The letter outlines several steps being taken to support impacted students, including providing wellness support, cooperating with law enforcement investigations, sharing resources with schools, and compiling materials for families about talking through issues of race and social justice.
“Racism of any kind has no place in our community,” the letter states. “We do not tolerate any instance of hate, bigotry or racism in San Francisco schools and we actively work to support SFUSD staff with implementing anti-racist approaches both in and out of the classroom.”