Is Spike Lee 'Doing the RIght Thing'?

Last week, famous film director Spike Lee retweeted what turned out to be the wrong address of George Zimmerman to his over 250,000 followers.  Zimmerman, as I blogged about last week, is the neighborhood watchman who is in hiding after he infamously shot and killed teenager Trayvon Martin but was not charged with murder because he claimed he was acting in self defense.

The address Lee tweeted turned out to be that of an elderly, retired couple who had a son with a similar name.  This couple, scared for their lives, has been forced to flee their homes in fear of people trying to kill them.

Lee has since apologized for having the wrong address, but I still don't think this is a very forgivable action.  Not because he messed up the address, but because it is never a good idea to tweet anybody's personal address.  Especially a person that is so hated.

Lee had to know that people were going to show up at the house and try to make Zimmerman's life hell, so if this address was correct and Zimmerman got hurt in any way, I believe Spike Lee should be the person to blame, but do you think he even would have apologized?

We have courts and trials for a reason, Spike, let them do their work.  We don't need you to send your mob to try to get justice.

Actions like Lee's  greatly elevate the rate of violent crimes.  By tweeting his address, Lee, who has a lot of influence over African-Americans especially given his success., is basically telling his followers that it's alright to go and hurt, maybe even kill, George Zimmerman because he was wrong first.

This "Well, he did it first, so I need to get him back," viewpoint is a very often a huge reason why people commit violent acts, and therefore people who are exposed to violence are far more often to commit violent acts because they don't perceive it as being very bad.  In fact, in a study done in a journal I came across when researching shows that the crime that African-Americans living in urban, disadvantaged neighborhoods perceive to be the most understandable (when compared to prostitution, theft, and white collar crimes) is killing a white cop who is intentionally offensive and racist.  Whether he is or not, Zimmerman is being portrayed as a racist white cop who killed Trayvon Martin out of hate, so there is obviously a large group out their who want him dead, who, when given the message from Spike Lee that it's acceptable to hurt Zimmerman believe that killing him would not only be justifiable, but it is the right thing to do.

Is it possible to stop and calm a group of angry people so that they don't get violent revenge?