Buccaneers Under Fire For Team Name: ‘There Is Danger In Romanticizing Ruthless Cutthroats’

Sergie Daez | February 8, 2021
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Not everybody was happy to see the Tampa Bay Buccaneers win Super Bowl LV, and some are taking umbrage with the team. But according to the Daily Wire, historian Jamie L.H. Goodall was displeased with the Buccaneers even before their Super Bowl victory.  

The staff historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History wrote an article titled “The Buccaneers embody Tampa’s love of pirates. Is that a problem?” for the Washington Post. The article basically objected to the name of Tampa Bay’s football team because “there is danger in romanticizing ruthless cutthroats.”

The average person might ask themselves 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," Goodall explained.

We’re pretty sure “locking women and children in a burning church” is what Tampa Bay residents have in mind when they cheer on the Buccaneers at football games.

“So why do we celebrate individuals who were the baddest of bad guys, those whom preacher Cotton Mather once called ‘Common Enemies of Mankind?’” Goodall continued. “Pirates were known murderers who pillaged, raped and plundered their way through the Caribbean. And they were well-known enslavers who dehumanized Africans and Indigenous people, selling them for profit.”

While she’s at it, why doesn’t she object to the Minnesota Vikings’ team name? Vikings pillaged, raped and plundered as well. 

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Obviously, none of the crimes pirates committed in the past are commendable, and most football fans probably don’t endorse that kind of behavior. But Goodall doesn’t seem to be aware that football is a rough sport that calls for physical aggression in order to win. An aggressive team name is logically more fitting, as well as more intimidating to opponents. Therefore, “Buccaneers” is an appropriate team name due to their fierce reputation. A more peaceful name like the Tampa Bay Vacationers would be downright pathetic.

Goodall also took offense at romanticized versions of pirates.

“Pirates, then, are seen as romantic heroes — the underdogs fighting the establishment — whom historian Marcus Rediker refers to as proto-democratic, egalitarian and multicultural," Goodall wrote.

So much for the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise. 

Goodall just needs to leave football teams alone. She and social justice warriors are too dense to realize it, but they’re ruining the good, clean fun of many people with their woke sensitivities. Football fans just want their team to win, and they’re not endorsing plunder and rape through that desire. 

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