The day after Election Day, predominantly Black recipients received racist, trollish text messages telling them they had been “selected” to “pick cotton at the nearest plantation.” The messages were sent from varying numbers and area codes, and sent to recipients in at least eight states, including Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Virginia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Ohio, and Alabama. Students at both Alabama State University and the University of Alabama reported getting the messages; some Twitter users reported that children or teens too young to vote also received them.

The foul texts generated anger, fear, and a somewhat muted response from law enforcement, with the FBI confirming in a statement that it was “aware” of the incident and is in communication with the Justice Department and “other federal authorities” on the matter. Now, political violence researchers at Princeton University have a theory about how the messages targeted Black recipients, and advice for those who received them. 

Researchers at the Bridging Divides Initiative, a nonpartisan think tank at Princeton that studies and attempts to mitigate political violence, wrote in a rapid response analysis that the language of the texts appears to have been drawn from 4chan and from a now-deleted subreddit that was removed by Reddit’s moderators.

“An individual or individuals likely copy-pasted the text and used virtual phone numbers to send out the texts, selecting recipients based on their demographic profile,” the researchers wrote. “The recipient phone numbers could have been obtained via a data broker or a pre-existing data breach.” 

The Princeton researchers also wrote that they consider the security risk posed by the messages to be “low,” considering they didn’t contain other personally identifying information targeting the recipients, like their addresses. They advise recipients not to post screenshots of the messages that could inadvertently expose identifying information like phone numbers. They also recommend reporting the texts to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has condemned the messages and said it’s investigating their origin, or to local law enforcement.

Along with the FBI, Virginia’s attorney general has condemned the messages; a spokesperson with the Federal Communications Commission told Virginia’s 13News Now that the agency is also looking into the messages “alongside federal and state law enforcement.” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson explicitly tied them to the election results, writing in a statement: “The unfortunate reality of electing a President who, historically has embraced, and at times encouraged hate, is unfolding before our eyes.  These messages represent an alarming increase in vile and abhorrent rhetoric from racist groups across the country, who now feel emboldened to spread hate and stoke the flames of fear that many of us are feeling after Tuesday’s election results.”

Johnson added that the threat contained in the messages “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.” The NAACP also said it’s encouraging the FBI and local law enforcement “to take these messages seriously and respond appropriately.”

The day after Election Day, predominantly Black recipients received racist, trollish text messages telling them they had been “selected” to “pick cotton at the nearest plantation.” The messages were sent from varying numbers and area codes, and sent to recipients in at least eight states, including Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Virginia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Ohio, and Alabama. Students at both Alabama State University and the University of Alabama reported getting the messages; some Twitter users reported that children or teens too young to vote also received them.

The foul texts generated anger, fear, and a somewhat muted response from law enforcement, with the FBI confirming in a statement that it was “aware” of the incident and is in communication with the Justice Department and “other federal authorities” on the matter. Now, political violence researchers at Princeton University have a theory about how the messages targeted Black recipients, and advice for those who received them. 

Researchers at the Bridging Divides Initiative, a nonpartisan think tank at Princeton that studies and attempts to mitigate political violence, wrote in a rapid response analysis that the language of the texts appears to have been drawn from 4chan and from a now-deleted subreddit that was removed by Reddit’s moderators.

“An individual or individuals likely copy-pasted the text and used virtual phone numbers to send out the texts, selecting recipients based on their demographic profile,” the researchers wrote. “The recipient phone numbers could have been obtained via a data broker or a pre-existing data breach.” 

The Princeton researchers also wrote that they consider the security risk posed by the messages to be “low,” considering they didn’t contain other personally identifying information targeting the recipients, like their addresses. They advise recipients not to post screenshots of the messages that could inadvertently expose identifying information like phone numbers. They also recommend reporting the texts to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has condemned the messages and said it’s investigating their origin, or to local law enforcement.

Along with the FBI, Virginia’s attorney general has condemned the messages; a spokesperson with the Federal Communications Commission told Virginia’s 13News Now that the agency is also looking into the messages “alongside federal and state law enforcement.” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson explicitly tied them to the election results, writing in a statement: “The unfortunate reality of electing a President who, historically has embraced, and at times encouraged hate, is unfolding before our eyes.  These messages represent an alarming increase in vile and abhorrent rhetoric from racist groups across the country, who now feel emboldened to spread hate and stoke the flames of fear that many of us are feeling after Tuesday’s election results.”

Johnson added that the threat contained in the messages “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.” The NAACP also said it’s encouraging the FBI and local law enforcement “to take these messages seriously and respond appropriately.”

With the election on everyone’s mind, it’s a good moment to revisit a consequential election from the past. No, we’re not talking about 2016. Let’s go way further back—to what’s considered the only successful coup d’etat in US history. 

In the late 1800s, Wilmington, North Carolina, was a city where African Americans thrived economically and held elected office. This did not sit well with white supremacists, who during the election of 1898 used violence to intimidate voters and overthrow the elected government.

The leader of the coup, a former Confederate colonel named Alfred Moore Waddell, gave a speech in which he told white people: “If you see the Negro out voting tomorrow, tell him to stop. If he doesn’t, shoot him down. Shoot him down in his tracks.”

This week, the team at Reveal looks back at that coup and its consequences. After the overthrow, North Carolina legislators passed laws segregating white and Black people in housing, trains, schools, libraries, and other public spaces. Those laws were copied in states across the South, sowing the seeds of the Jim Crow era and much of the structural racism that continues today.

Glen Harris, a history professor at UNC Wilmington, sees a direct line of connection between this white supremacist uprising and events like George Floyd’s murder in 2020. “How Blacks are treated in American society is not a one-off event,” says Harris on the episode. “Part of the problem is that to suppress it, you look at these as one-off events.”

Also on this episode: Just after the Civil War, the US government made its famous “40 acres and a mule” promise to formerly enslaved people. Most Americans assume the promise of land was never kept, but over a two-and-a-half-year investigation, journalists at the Center for Public Integrity unearthed records that prove freed people had, and lost, titles to tracts of land that once were part of plantations.  

This is an update of episodes that originally aired in October 2020 and June 2024. 

With the election on everyone’s mind, it’s a good moment to revisit a consequential election from the past. No, we’re not talking about 2016. Let’s go way further back—to what’s considered the only successful coup d’etat in US history. 

In the late 1800s, Wilmington, North Carolina, was a city where African Americans thrived economically and held elected office. This did not sit well with white supremacists, who during the election of 1898 used violence to intimidate voters and overthrow the elected government.

The leader of the coup, a former Confederate colonel named Alfred Moore Waddell, gave a speech in which he told white people: “If you see the Negro out voting tomorrow, tell him to stop. If he doesn’t, shoot him down. Shoot him down in his tracks.”

This week, the team at Reveal looks back at that coup and its consequences. After the overthrow, North Carolina legislators passed laws segregating white and Black people in housing, trains, schools, libraries, and other public spaces. Those laws were copied in states across the South, sowing the seeds of the Jim Crow era and much of the structural racism that continues today.

Glen Harris, a history professor at UNC Wilmington, sees a direct line of connection between this white supremacist uprising and events like George Floyd’s murder in 2020. “How Blacks are treated in American society is not a one-off event,” says Harris on the episode. “Part of the problem is that to suppress it, you look at these as one-off events.”

Also on this episode: Just after the Civil War, the US government made its famous “40 acres and a mule” promise to formerly enslaved people. Most Americans assume the promise of land was never kept, but over a two-and-a-half-year investigation, journalists at the Center for Public Integrity unearthed records that prove freed people had, and lost, titles to tracts of land that once were part of plantations.  

This is an update of episodes that originally aired in October 2020 and June 2024. 

JD Vance loves a Sunday morning media blitz.

In his latest round of television interviews, it appears he will not be swayed by the mounting evidence that the racist lies he amplified about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets—which former President Trump repeated on the debate stage this week to 67 million viewers—are demonstrably false. Instead, Trump’s historically unpopular running mate doubled down on his claims in a series of interviews on CNN, NBC, and CBS—even after the reporters fact-checked him.

Let’s start with Vance’s interview on CNN’s State of the Union, which saw the most time dedicated to the topic—and featured Vance’s most combative exchange.

Host Dana Bash asked Vance why he continues amplifying the claims, given that Springfield has received multiple bomb threats that led to two hospitals going into lockdown Saturday, plus several schools and the city hall being evacuated since Trump mentioned the lies at the debate. As Bash also pointed out, Springfield’s own mayor told a local television station, “All these federal politicians that have negatively spun our city, they need to know they’re hurting our city, and it was their words that did it.”

“These are your constituents,” Bash began, “so why are you putting them at risk by continuing to spread claims about Haitian immigrants, despite officials in your state saying that there’s no evidence and pleading for you to stop?”

Vance replied by insisting that he was amplifying the claims of “firsthand” accounts he heard from his constituents—even though, as Bash pointed out, they don’t appear to have any basis in reality.

On Friday, NBC News reported that the Springfield resident who first shared the false claims on Facebook about migrants eating pets—which she allegedly heard through the grapevine of her neighbor’s daughter’s friend—said she had no firsthand knowledge of any incident and regretted that her post sparked a national rumor, adding, “I feel for the Haitian community.” And as Bash noted, the Clark County Sheriff’s Office examined 11 months of 911 calls and found only one, on Aug. 26, that alleged four Haitians were carrying geese within the city of Springfield, according to a report in the Springfield News-Sun. The sheriff’s office directed the call to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, whose officials were not able to substantiate the claim—but that did not stop Donald Trump Jr. from posting audio of the 911 call to X this week.

But Vance, ultimately, did not seem to be interested in confronting these inconvenient facts. Instead, he called Bash’s implication that his words led to the threats in Springfield “disgusting” and said her question was “more appropriate for a democratic propagandist than it is for an American journalist,” leaving Bash visibly shocked. “We can criticize violence,” Vance added later in the interview. “We can also still talk about the problems that are happening in Springfield, and we should be able to do both those things simultaneously.”

When Bash once again gave him an opportunity to acknowledge the rumors about migrants eating pets were unfounded, he did not save himself. “The evidence,” he told Bash, “is the firsthand account of my constituents who are telling me that this happened.”

Things didn’t go much better for Vance on NBC or CBS. He made the same argument—that he believed the accounts he heard from unspecified constituents over fact-checks from officials and the media—to Kristen Welker, host of NBC’s Meet the Press. When she asked why he couldn’t make his argument about immigration without amplifying these lies, he referenced yet another debunked rumor about migrants eating pets in the Ohio city of Dayton, about 30 miles southwest of Springfield.

On CBS the same morning, Vance told Margaret Brennan, host of Face the Nation, that while he condemned violence and the threats that have been phoned into Springfield, he did not believe the claims were “false rumors,” adding, “Everybody who has dealt with a large influx of migration knows that sometimes there are cultural practices that seem very far out there to a lot of Americans…the American media is more interested in fact checking innocent people who are begging for relief than they are in investigating some of these claims.” (Again: Multiple officials have confirmed there is no evidence to support these claims, including the state’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine.)

Predictably, Vance and his cronies on the right used the interviewers’ fact-checking of him as evidence of their alleged biases. Donald Trump Jr. lauded him in a post on X for “embarrassing the Fake News.”

As my colleague Noah Lanard pointed out, Springfield is dealing with real challenges as it seeks to accommodate roughly 15,000 Haitian immigrants in a town of 60,000 people: Rent has gotten more expensive, in part due to landlords reducing the number of affordable housing units in the town, and schools are in need of more funding to support their growing numbers. And now, thanks to Vance and others involved in amplifying the falsehoods, there are new issues to worry about in Springfield: Schools and hospitals getting bomb threats, and Haitians are living in fear. But if Vance’s trio of Sunday interviews were any indication, none of this, apparently, is enough to stop him.

JD Vance loves a Sunday morning media blitz.

In his latest round of television interviews, it appears he will not be swayed by the mounting evidence that the racist lies he amplified about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets—which former President Trump repeated on the debate stage this week to 67 million viewers—are demonstrably false. Instead, Trump’s historically unpopular running mate doubled down on his claims in a series of interviews on CNN, NBC, and CBS—even after the reporters fact-checked him.

Let’s start with Vance’s interview on CNN’s State of the Union, which saw the most time dedicated to the topic—and featured Vance’s most combative exchange.

Host Dana Bash asked Vance why he continues amplifying the claims, given that Springfield has received multiple bomb threats that led to two hospitals going into lockdown Saturday, plus several schools and the city hall being evacuated since Trump mentioned the lies at the debate. As Bash also pointed out, Springfield’s own mayor told a local television station, “All these federal politicians that have negatively spun our city, they need to know they’re hurting our city, and it was their words that did it.”

“These are your constituents,” Bash began, “so why are you putting them at risk by continuing to spread claims about Haitian immigrants, despite officials in your state saying that there’s no evidence and pleading for you to stop?”

Vance replied by insisting that he was amplifying the claims of “firsthand” accounts he heard from his constituents—even though, as Bash pointed out, they don’t appear to have any basis in reality.

On Friday, NBC News reported that the Springfield resident who first shared the false claims on Facebook about migrants eating pets—which she allegedly heard through the grapevine of her neighbor’s daughter’s friend—said she had no firsthand knowledge of any incident and regretted that her post sparked a national rumor, adding, “I feel for the Haitian community.” And as Bash noted, the Clark County Sheriff’s Office examined 11 months of 911 calls and found only one, on Aug. 26, that alleged four Haitians were carrying geese within the city of Springfield, according to a report in the Springfield News-Sun. The sheriff’s office directed the call to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, whose officials were not able to substantiate the claim—but that did not stop Donald Trump Jr. from posting audio of the 911 call to X this week.

But Vance, ultimately, did not seem to be interested in confronting these inconvenient facts. Instead, he called Bash’s implication that his words led to the threats in Springfield “disgusting” and said her question was “more appropriate for a democratic propagandist than it is for an American journalist,” leaving Bash visibly shocked. “We can criticize violence,” Vance added later in the interview. “We can also still talk about the problems that are happening in Springfield, and we should be able to do both those things simultaneously.”

When Bash once again gave him an opportunity to acknowledge the rumors about migrants eating pets were unfounded, he did not save himself. “The evidence,” he told Bash, “is the firsthand account of my constituents who are telling me that this happened.”

Things didn’t go much better for Vance on NBC or CBS. He made the same argument—that he believed the accounts he heard from unspecified constituents over fact-checks from officials and the media—to Kristen Welker, host of NBC’s Meet the Press. When she asked why he couldn’t make his argument about immigration without amplifying these lies, he referenced yet another debunked rumor about migrants eating pets in the Ohio city of Dayton, about 30 miles southwest of Springfield.

On CBS the same morning, Vance told Margaret Brennan, host of Face the Nation, that while he condemned violence and the threats that have been phoned into Springfield, he did not believe the claims were “false rumors,” adding, “Everybody who has dealt with a large influx of migration knows that sometimes there are cultural practices that seem very far out there to a lot of Americans…the American media is more interested in fact checking innocent people who are begging for relief than they are in investigating some of these claims.” (Again: Multiple officials have confirmed there is no evidence to support these claims, including the state’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine.)

Predictably, Vance and his cronies on the right used the interviewers’ fact-checking of him as evidence of their alleged biases. Donald Trump Jr. lauded him in a post on X for “embarrassing the Fake News.”

As my colleague Noah Lanard pointed out, Springfield is dealing with real challenges as it seeks to accommodate roughly 15,000 Haitian immigrants in a town of 60,000 people: Rent has gotten more expensive, in part due to landlords reducing the number of affordable housing units in the town, and schools are in need of more funding to support their growing numbers. And now, thanks to Vance and others involved in amplifying the falsehoods, there are new issues to worry about in Springfield: Schools and hospitals getting bomb threats, and Haitians are living in fear. But if Vance’s trio of Sunday interviews were any indication, none of this, apparently, is enough to stop him.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

As far back as 2016, work on AI-based chatbots revealed that they have a disturbing tendency to reflect some of the worst biases of the society that trained them. But as large language models have become ever larger and subjected to more sophisticated training, a lot of that problematic behavior has been ironed out. For example, I asked the current iteration of ChatGPT for five words it associated with African Americans, and it responded with things like "resilience" and "creativity."

But a lot of research has turned up examples where implicit biases can persist in people long after outward behavior has changed. So some researchers decided to test whether the same might be true of LLMs. And was it ever.

By interacting with a series of LLMs using examples of the African American English sociolect, they found that the AI's had an extremely negative view of its speakers—something that wasn't true of speakers of another American English variant. And that bias bled over into decisions the LLMs were asked to make about those who use African American English.

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Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) said a lot of wild things during his Sunday morning media blitz. But one of his comments has received far less attention than the others: Vance described a federal program that has distributed nearly $2 billion to mostly Black farmers who experienced discrimination as “disgraceful,” suggesting that it is racist against white people.

And now, the head of the largest group of Black farmers across the country is condemning Vance’s assertions.

“He owes us an apology,” John Boyd, Jr., founder and president of the National Black Farmers Association, told me. The remarks, Boyd added, were “disgraceful, deplorable, dumb, degrading, and disrespectful to the nation’s Black farmers, the oldest occupation in history for Black people.”

A spokesperson for Vance also did not respond to questions from Mother Jones beyond requesting that we include the senator’s full remarks, which came during an appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation, during which Vance was asked about the racist attacks against his wife, Usha Vance. After condemning them, he added:

I frankly think that unfortunately, a lot of people on the left have leaned into this by trying to categorize people by skin color and then give special benefits or special amounts of discrimination. The Harris Administration, for example, handed out farm benefits to people based on skin color. I think that’s disgraceful. I don’t think we should say, you get farm benefits if you’re a Black farmer, you don’t get farm benefits if you’re a white farmer. All farmers, we want to thrive, and that’s certainly the President Trump and JD Vance view of the situation.

But Vance’s assertions here are an inaccurate portrayal of the Discrimination Financial Assistance Program, the federal program established through the Inflation Reduction Act. Contrary to Vance’s claim, applicants were not limited to Black farmers; Any farmer who had experienced discrimination by the US Department of Agriculture—including based on sexual orientation or gender identity, religion, age, or disability—was eligible to apply. Last month, the USDA announced it had distributed payments to more than 43,000 people in all 50 states through the program, which Congress allocated $2.2 billion for.

While the USDA has not released data on the racial breakdown of farmers who received money through DFAP, Boyd said 85 percent of the funds went to Black farmers “because it’s obvious we were treated the worst.” The history of the government’s discrimination against Black farmers specifically is well-documented, including in Mother Jones‘ recent award-winning investigation, “40 Acres and a Lie“—done in collaboration with the Center for Public Integrity and Reveal—which documents how the federal government stole land it gave to Black farmers following the Civil War. Black farmers also faced barriers to receiving loans, credit, and support compared to white farmers.

Still, that hasn’t stopped some white people—including Vance and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)—from trying to claim federal aid to Black farmers perpetuates “reverse racism.” White farmers have also filed lawsuits against promised debt relief for Black farmers that Congress approved in 2021, claiming it discriminated against them.

Supporting the Trump-Vance ticket was now “off the table,” Boyd said in response to Vance’s remarks. Though he called Vice President Kamala Harris a “breath of fresh air,” Boyd called on Harris to commit support to Black farmers before the election—specifically, through debt relief for Black farmers. The Harris campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

In the meantime, Boyd is still waiting for an apology from Vance—but he’s not holding his breath. “We got the money,” Boyd said. DFAP, he added, was “a huge victory for Black farmers.”