South Florida woman reacts to racist text that said she’d ‘been selected to pick cotton’ amid investigations

A South Florida woman said she was among the people across the country who received texts in the wake of Tuesday’s general election that have been described as racist and insensitive.

Speaking with 7News on Saturday, Corryn Freeman said she received one of these texts on Wednesday.

“As a Black woman, like, it feels particularly targeted, and I wasn’t sure if my life was imminently in danger,” she said.

The text told Freeman that she had been “selected to pick cotton” on a plantation.

“And it gave me a date that I would be picked up and a group letter that I was in, and it just was perturbing,” she said.

Freeman said she received this text around 5 p.m.

“I was afraid, I was scared, I was nervous, because I was like, ‘Who sends this?'” she said.

But Freeman later realized she was not only one who received the racist message.

“I had two friends reach out separately — ones in Georgia, ones in Massachusetts — saying that their children received this message, and then I realized it wasn’t directly targeted at me,” she said.

Officials said other Black and brown people in more than 20 states — children, students and adults — received the texts.

Some of the messages said that “slave catchers” will pick them up in a van.

One variation of the message said it’s from an associate of President-elect Donald Trump.

Thirteen-year-old Kim Reynolds said he received this variation.

“‘I am one of Donald Trump’s associates, and your cotton picking tests are from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.,'” he said as he read the text.

“My first reaction was kind of like shock,” Talaya Jones, who also received one of these texts, told CNN.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign said, “The campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these text messages.”

NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson reacted to the texts, saying:

“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.”

“I believe that there’s a possibility that it’s foreign interference to try to create destabilization in the country and capitalize on an already tense and divisive time,” said Freeman.

Freeman said she hopes for unity and peace.

“I want an America where we all have the ability to exist and be in our cultures that are celebrated,” she said.

As of Saturday night, the sender has not yet been identified, but these texts have sparked federal and local investigations.