(By Alexandra Petri, Washington Post, March 29, 2012)
There are
many problems with what happened Wednesday with filmmaker Spike Lee on Twitter.
One problem was that what Spike Lee
thought was the home address of George Zimmerman — the man who shot teenager
Trayvon Martin — actually belonged to a couple in their seventies. The bigger
problem was that he tweeted what he thought was the address of George Zimmerman
to his 240,000-odd followers in the first place. The expected happened after he sent the tweet
out. Menacing calls. Menacing letters. Menacing envelopes with Taste The
Rainbow printed on them. (I am not making this up.) It makes you reflect on how creepy these
candy slogans can be, if said with the right inflection. Of course it’s a problem that someone lettered
“TASTE THE RAINBOW” on an envelope and frightened a retired couple.
But even the
right address would have been the wrong address. What did Lee reasonably expect? That his
followers were going to send the “Zimmerman residence” indignant letters? That
they might ship him Edible Arrangements with passive-aggressive but
politely-worded notes? Of course not.
Instead, people responded by becoming exactly the thing they were trying to
punish: vigilantes, pursuing their own sense of right and wrong without regard
to law or fact. Did nobody learn anything?
The fact
that it was an elderly couple and not the intended recipient just pointed up
the wrongness of this whole situation more starkly. You can't just go around
tweeting the addresses of people and subjecting them to the Twitter mob’s blunt
justice. There is much to be angry about in the story of Trayvon Martin. But
you can’t fix a wrong with another wrong. I’m glad Lee apologized, tweeting, “Justice in
court.” That’s where it has to happen. If only that thought had come sooner. One injustice is more than enough.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/post/spike-lees-twitter-mistake/2012/03/29/gIQAKgujjS_blog.html
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