For Super Bowl LV, the Woke Monster set its sights on the Tampa Buccaneers – this time through a Washington Post article that criticized the team for "romanticizing ruthless cutthroats."

"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," wrote Jamie L.H. Goodall. "These were men (and women) who willingly participated in murder, torture and the brutal enslavement of Africans and Indigenous peoples."

Goodall dove into a little etymology by tracing the origin of the word "buccaneer" back to the Tupi people of Brazil, hunters who cooked dried meats on a special type of grill called a "boucan."

Side note: Because I too enjoy the history of words, I'll mention that the Haitian word for such a grill, "barbacoa," is where we get the word "barbecue" from today.

Alas, while one word came to represent the cooking of delicious meats, the other came to represent brutal pirates of the Caribbean.

Goodall took a few long paragraphs to criticize a Tampa tradition of the the Gasparilla Pirate Festival named after the infamous pirate Gaspar, and then lays into all pop culture references to pirates going back a few centuries, including the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films, Lord Byron's poem "The Corsair" and Sir Walter Scott's "The Pirate."

"Perhaps time has dulled us to the atrocities committed by these 17th and 18th century outlaws," she wrote, "Or perhaps it's the fact that if pirates of the Golden Age were bloodthirsty, so too were the nations who opposed them."

I'll forgive her for forgetting one of the most important fictional pirates:

Having led the reader to this point, Goodall then pointed to what everything related to pirates – both good and back – was all about:

Critical Race Theory.

"They willingly and purposefully massacred millions of African and Indigenous peoples in the name of colonization," she said. "Pirates, then, are seen as romantic heroes - the underdogs fighting the establishment - whom historian Marcus Rediker refers to as proto-democratic, egalitarian and multicultural."

There you have it. Pirates were evil because they murdered a bunch of BIPOC individuals (no mention of the white people they also butchered indiscriminately, but whatevs). At the same time, pirates were also maaaybe good because they fought against the evil white colonialists, who everybody knows invented racism, military conquest, and sin.

In this latter way, they are "proto-democratic, egalitarian, and multicultural."

So we shouldn't romanticize pirates... except to romanticize the elements of their history that conveniently fit in our hyper-racialized, intersectional, Marxist framework of the world. Got it!

Therefore, Tampa is not only guilty of cultural appropriation, but also of supporting the barbarism of dual lawlessness and imperialism. It's clear that there's a cabal of evil white men who conspired to name the team to degrade black and native individuals!

Alternatively, maybe the name was chosen precisely because pirates are mean and bad. And also because team names are kinda gimmicky and not meant to be taken super seriously. Sports are about competing and having fun, but I'm sure revisionist history and erasing anything that might offend will lead to super funny/cool names that are catchy for future generations:

Goodall then lambasted Tampa's rival, the Kansas City Chiefs, because again, everything must be cancelled.

"Should we celebrate their complicated legacy? It's a question Tampa Bay has to contend with as we collectively contemplate other major sports mascots with dubious legacies, like their Super Bowl rivals in Kansas City."

I guess it's a good thing the "Patriots" weren't at the Super Bowl this year...

But my friends, this story has one last gift to give, and that is from Goodall herself. After an entire article criticizing anyone who might "romanticize" history by naming a team after Spanish pirates or Native American warriors or Norse invaders, she included a profile picture of herself...

With a GIANT pirate tattoo on her arm:

Her website also discusses her work as a historian, an author on pirate lore, and her love of pirate-themed renaissance fairs.

You see, it's okay if the woke bend the code, but if you laugh at Jack Sparrow or have the Jolly Roger on your football flag, you have committed wrongthink, are promoting the colonialist patriarchy and must be made to walk the plank.