Washington Post Journalist Wonders If Tampa Bay Bucs Are Romanticizing Problematic Pirate Culture

Getty Image

Images)

In the past year, we’ve seen several professional sports teams attempt to distance themselves from their problematic mascots and one journalist believes the Tampa Bay Buccaneers deserve to be criticized for romanticizing pirate culture.

Before the start of the Super Bowl on Sunday, Washington Post columnist and pirate historian Jamie L.H. Goodall questioned whether Tampa Bay’s love of pirate culture was problematic due to the long history of brutality from pirates towards Indigenous people in the past.

Via Washington Post

Yet, while this celebration of piracy seems like innocent fun and pride in a local culture, there is danger in romanticizing ruthless cutthroats who created a crisis in world trade when they captured and plundered thousands of ships on Atlantic trade routes between the Americas, Africa and Great Britain. Why? Because it takes these murderous thieves who did terrible things — like locking women and children in a burning church — and makes them a symbol of freedom and adventure, erasing their wicked deeds from historical memory. These were men (and women) who willingly participated in murder, torture and the brutal enslavement of Africans and Indigenous peoples.

Of course, Goodall’s article wasn’t well-received on the Internet on Super Bowl Sunday.

https://twitter.com/venividivincky/status/1358487051549609984