00:00I literally had just opened my eyes, I was doing a little bit of doom scrolling and then
00:14went right into my text messages and I sat straight up in the bed and I said, not this,
00:20not today.
00:34Being that it was so shocking, I immediately texted the number back, who is this, oh my
00:40god, profanity, and then I even tried to call it and that's when I found out it was from
00:44a fake text, one of those fake numbers, so it had already been discarded or whatever
00:50and I was just like, you know what, this is to be expected.
01:06These texts were the beginning of people who already lead in being nasty and mean, but
01:13it was giving them the moment to be able to push the envelope of being nastier and even
01:18more sinister and mean to the community.
01:20So I feel like when I say it already started from the results that we saw that night and
01:25then waking up to the results, I feel like, again, that just opened up a whole floodgate
01:29of letting people do what they feel like is right or feel like they can do because they
01:35can.
01:42To me, it wasn't alarming to the point where I'm like, let me go to the authorities and
01:47have them dig through this.
01:48Now the texts that these children on these college campuses and younger kids have gotten,
01:55that makes me feel like that this is just filled by hatred, that this was, you know,
02:00someone got a hold of their information and just regurgitated something they saw and was
02:04just being mean.
02:17So it was Wednesday evening, probably around maybe 8 p.m.
02:26I walked in the room and he was on his video games with his friends and he was like, uncle,
02:30I just got a text message and it said that we're going to be paid or picked up to be
02:35cotton pickers.
02:36And I was like, what?
02:37What are you talking about?
02:38And then I read the message and then I was like, you know, you don't have anything to
02:40worry about.
02:41But it was the next day that I found out that it was something that was, you know, alarming
02:45that it was going viral and that a lot of people was getting it.
02:56We're not here for hate.
02:57We're not here to spew hate or anger or any of that.
03:01Who won, won.
03:02You know, congratulations.
03:03But let's walk in peace and walk in love because love covers everything at the end of the day.
03:08I think the goal is to add fear and intimidation to a group of people, to add fear and intimidation
03:14to a group of young people who have not experienced this type of direct hatred.
03:18And our response is to remind the young people where they come from, who they are, and that
03:23we do not sit back and allow people to threaten us without a response, a nonviolent, peaceful
03:28response, but a forceful response that this is our country.
03:32We're not retreating.
03:33We built this country.
03:34We'll continue to make this country move forward and live up to the promise that it gave all
03:37the citizens.
03:48We remember what the climate in the country was like from 2016 to 2020.
03:53And so it appears that it's returning to that type of climate.
03:56Very disappointing that it's returning to that type of climate.
04:00of climate. Very disappointing that individuals would target African-Americans with such hateful
04:06comments and commentary, but we are prepared to respond. We've already reached out to our
04:10partners in law enforcement, both on the state, local, and federal level, and we're just going
04:15to make sure that we are vigilant to make sure that these threats do not escalate and that we
04:20continue to move forward in a progressive and peaceful manner.
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