But they’re white, so apparently it’s ok.
The mass dissemination of the address on Edgewater Circle in Sanford–the Florida city where Martin was shot to death last month–took flight last Friday when director Spike Lee retweeteda tweet containing Zimmerman’s purported address to his 240,000 followers.
The original tweet was sent to Lee (and numerous other celebrities like Will Smith, 50 Cent, and LeBron James) last Friday afternoon by Marcus Davonne Higgins, a 33-year-old Los Angeles man who uses the online handle “maccapone.” Higgins included the direction, “EVERYBODY REPOST THIS.”
Lee was dumb enough to do just that.
The residence on Edgewater Circle is actually the home of David McClain, 72, and his wife Elaine, 70. The McClains, both of whom work for the Seminole County school system, have lived in the 1310-square-foot lakefront home for about a decade, records show.
In an interview tonight, Elaine McClain told TSG that she and her husband were “afraid” due to the online linking of her address to Zimmerman. “We’re keeping everything locked,” she said. McClain added that the couple was particularly unnerved by a letter mailed to them at their home. On the envelope, she said, were printed the words “Taste The Rainbow,” the slogan for Skittles. Martin was carrying a pack of Skittles and a can of ice tea when he was gunned down by Zimmerman.
McClain said her husband returned the envelope unopened to the post office.
The McClains (pictured below) only became aware that their address was being widely circulated online two days ago, when a TV reporter arrived at their home asking for “George.” Bewildered by their sudden–and erroneous–connection to Martin’s killer, the elderly couple’s distress can only be heightened by posts made by Twitter and Facebook users who threaten to visit their residence in search of Zimmerman. Or other posts that goad followers to vigilante action.
Remember, the Black Panthers have solicited Zimmerman’s kidnapping or murder, with a $10,000 bounty on the table. That crime plus Spike Lee’s re-tweet has put this innocent couple’s lives and property in real jeopardy.
This isn’t the first time the overrated movie maker has gone off the deep end on a developing story. During and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Lee publicly engaged in irresponsible conspiracy theories that accused President Bush of blowing up the New Orleans levees to allow New Orleans to flood on purpose.
Update: Lawyer up, Spike.
An elderly Florida couple have been forced to move into a hotel after their home address was wrongly tweeted as belonging to the man who shot teen Trayvon Martin.
The tweets were traced back to a man in California and the address was also reportedly retweeted by director Spike Lee to his almost 250,000 followers.
Idiot.
Update: Spike Lee is an Obama fundraiser. He held a big fundraising event for the president a couple of months ago.
The lavish New York event, in which an estimated 60 guests paid $38,500 “per head” or $71,600 per couple for the privilege to share dinner with the president and film legend Spike Lee, started at 6:00 p.m., right after another upscale gathering in which leaders of the New York City Jewish community paid $25,000 each for greeting and taking a picture with Obama.
So we have an Obama fundraiser retweeting a threat to a man accused but not convicted of anything, and the threat has landed on an innocent elderly couple and driven them from their home. Care to engage in any soul searching, Mr. President?
This is lawsuit material. Bigtime.
Has Lee made any sort of a statement after he put that innocent couple in the cross hairs?
he probably made the same apology Justin Beiber did after giving our an innocent man’s phone number.
Context — Justin Bieber’s dumb tweet did not come alongside a $10,000 bounty for a man’s capture “dead or alive.”
Spike Lee is and always has been a racist.
No Spike Lee isn’t racist but he is black and believe it or not, we are subjected to all kinds of crap on a daily basis becasue of our brown-ness. Case in point, I had a co worker ask me last week “are there any 100% black irish people” How and why I got to be the spokesperson for “all things black” I’ll never know. No it wasn’t racism but it was stupid. My point is, don’t confuse the two, racism and tired of the B.S. A lot of us are just the latter. And in case you didn’t know it, we don’t really care if you call us racist.
Hi Shelli. I moved to Texas from California expecting to see remnants of the Old South. What I learned was that bigotry is an equal opportunity employer. Considering that the entire thrust by Jesse Jackson et al is based upon the alleged injustice of a white man shooting an unarmed black teenager and allegedly getting away with murder, racism was injected into this discussion by blacks.
Now this doesn’t imply that white racism doesn’t exist. I wrote about two whites attacking a black man recently, and can cite many other cases.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/03/25/jesse-jackson-uses-trayvon-martin%e2%80%99s-death-to-restore-the-plantation/
Or one can visit Stormfront, where I’ve had the misfortune of having some of my writings cited. (Dudes! My parents were Jewish!)
What frustrates me, and apparently you as well, is the constant harping to make everything about race, ethnicity, religion, gender, etc. This in itself ensures continued division along lines of rhetoric, which usually has a tenuous relationship with reality.
The wisest man I know was a client of mine, a hetero white male who managed a Lesbian bar in San Francisco (how’s that for cross-stereotyping?). He told me: Everybody is prejudiced; it’s what they do with it that matters.
Until America’s ready for an honest talk about the issue, we’ll just remain in camps sniping at each other. But the only people who benefit from this are the very people we absolutely don’t want running the country, and they already are.
So we can either stick our noses in the air and convince ourselves we’re “right” and lost, or we can change and win.
What’s it going to be?
Hernandez is Hispanic…not white.
Yeah, unless Obama is white, too. But I was speaking to the general issue, not Zimmerman.
So stop bitching we don’t care either
Lastly, To address the comment about Spike Lee being overrated. No he isn’t. Spike is a great director. He’s made some very good movies and documentaries that haven’t gotten the attention probably becasue he is black. He made a mistake. Don’t get ugly and talk about his craft or profession becasue he made a mistake. Wasn’t nobody on TV saying Justin Beiber couldn’t sing becasue he twetted someone’s phone number….twice. So easeup.
Hi Shelli! Thank you for weighing in on the over-hyping of racism. I appreciate your candor.
On the tweeting issue, I have one question: Isn’t this grounds for cyber-stalking? Calling attention to uninvolved people when there’s already been credible threats of retribution and violence? Isn’t this a bit beyond a “mistake” and “stupid”? I mean, robbing a bank is stupid, but people do hard time nevertheless.
That’s just not true. His documentaries are crap, he is an insane race baiter and racist. He goes into the same category as George Wallace, The Black Panthers, the KKK, Joseph Goebels, and Jessie Jackson; all racists. Particularly Goebels, since he uses film.
I’ve watched several of Lee’s movies — Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, Jungle Fever, She’s Gotta Have It, Mo’ Better Blues, probably one or two others I’ve forgotten about. They’re ok but formulaic, mostly predictable, not great, but far from the worst things I’ve seen. He doesn’t lack for attention because he’s black. He probably gets more attention than he would if he was white, though. He’s meh, great sometimes, but inconsistent. I’d take him as a director over many though. So I think he’s overrated — big deal.
The issue here isn’t his directing though, it’s him retweeting what he thought was Zimmerman’s address. That was irresponsible. It is now terrorizing an innocent couple. There is no justifying what he has done, and he owes them an apology at the very least.
– ads; “Best on Earth, Best on Mars” (also, The Miracle of St. Anna).
…maccapone? Don’t say that in Virginia.
Somewhere, a pack of ambulance-chasers is salivating at the prospect of suing the political correctness off this pogue…
Apparently the McClains have lawyered up.
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-28/news/os-trayvon-martin-spike-lee-morgan-firm-20120328_1_spike-lee-tweeted-address