A Lady (First Mistake) Historian (Second) Wrote About Pirates (Third). Guess What Came Next, Guess, Guess.
Let's note that most of the piece isn't even directed at the ugly history of piracy; if anything, Goodall devotes far more space to the many different stories, none supported by historical documentation, about Tampa Bay's beloved and possibly fictional pirate hero José Gaspar. Nonetheless, a few paragraphs do touch on what awful people pirates were, and the Post gave the piece the headline "The Buccaneers embody Tampa's love of pirates. Is that a problem?"
Most of the online ire has been aimed at this paragraph, which mentions slavery and indigenous people, and is therefore anti-American propaganda:
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.
It's not that Goodall is factually incorrect about piracy. But she talks about crimes against Black and Indigenous people, plus women, and that can only mean one thing: She's a crazy ranting liberal who wants you to feel bad about things you like, just because some people in history suffered, and isn't she a killjoy? Wingnuts decided that Goodall was out to make the team change its name (she never says anything of the sort) and that, even worse, she was calling them bad people for liking football.
Soon the full culture war backlash was on, because why do liberals have to suck the fun out of everything? Perpetually aggrieved Daily Wire griper-man Matt Walsh mocked the very idea that a team mascot could mean anything:
And right on schedule came the twitter trolls, the threats (yes, including rape threats, because a woman said things on the internet), and Goodall's decision to temporarily lock her Twitter account to shut out some of the noise. And of course, the accusations of horrible hypocrisy: How dare Goodall tell people they're not allowed to romanticize pirates when she herself has a tattoo of a sexy lady pirate, huh? It's a pretty good gotcha! except for the part where she never said no one's allowed to romanticize pirates, she just thinks it's a phenomenon we might want to think about. Fellow pirate historian Scarlet Ingstad pointed out that folks who study pirate history often enjoy joking about the romanticized image of pirates, even while detailing the truth of the "horrors they inflicted." But context and subtlety aren't allowed in a good culture wars skirmish.
Goodall's chief crime appears to have been writing about historical context at all in connection to football, in a year in which the Washington DC football team finally dropped its racist mascot, and the Kansas City team, the other one in the Super Bowl, is being pressured to do the same, as Goodall notes. And why did she even have to accurately note that pirates enslaved Black people, especially in a year when they keep insisting their lives matter?
We learn many things from rightwing culture warriors, who insist it's wrong to condemn slavery based on "modern" morality (as if no one at the time objected, particularly the enslaved). But apparently pointing out that piracy was condemned in its own time — Goodall notes that Cotton Mather called pirates "Common Enemies of Mankind" — is also some kind of revisionist cancel culture too.
Donald Trump's reactionary bloviations about academic history being a sinister plot to make children hate America have definitely taken root, and here are its fruits: a historian getting threats for having suggested pirates make some pretty strange romantic heroes, given their actual history.
Not that any of the wingnuts noticed, but Goodall actually closed her essay with a compelling historical argument for why pirates might have come to be seen as romantic figures [emphasis added]:
Perhaps time has dulled us to the atrocities committed by these 17th and 18th century outlaws. Or perhaps it's the fact that if pirates of the Golden Age were bloodthirsty, so too were the nations who opposed them. They willingly and purposefully massacred millions of African and Indigenous peoples in the name of colonization. Pirates, then, are seen as romantic heroes — the underdogs fighting the establishment — whom historian Marcus Rediker refers to as proto-democratic, egalitarian and multicultural.
If you ask us, that's a convincing argument, and an answer to her earlier question. The problem is that she asked it at all, setting off what's become a predictable, even inevitable rightwing backlash. We're sure Tucker Carlson will eventually find time to get angry at Goodall, too. Especially if Trump's impeachment trial keeps making Trump look bad.
[Washington Post / Daily Mail / Outsports / Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay]
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Your Sunday Show Roundup Features The GOP's Dumbest Trump Dead-Enders!
Bartiromo also hosted the Senate's Dumbest Republican, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Much like O.J. Simpson is still searching for the real killers, Johnson trying to "investigate" who knew what and when around the January 6 Capitol breach and siege.
Of course the investigation should be very easy, considering Johnson is was part of the original Sedition Squad that objected to certifying President Biden's landslide win.
But Johnson has never ever let facts get in the way of sycophantic defenses of Trump, so this Sunday was no exception.
Ron Johnson absurdly floats that Nancy Pelosi is somehow responsible for a MAGA mob descending on the Capitol for a… https://t.co/xmOVMIu9Cq— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar)1612712491.0
JOHNSON: Well, again, I have always believed the Russian hoax was a diversionary operation from the corruption that was occurring within certainly the FBI and potentially some of our intelligence agencies. You have to kind of ask the question, what is this impeachment all about?
We now know that 45 Republican senators believe it's unconstitutional. Is this another diversionary operation? Is this meant to deflect away from potentially what the speaker knew and when she knew it?
Well, Ron, the impeachment is about holding a former president accountable for inciting a mob to try to overturn an election, an attack that killed five people. It's actually the ONLY way to hold him accountable for crimes he committed while he was president, according to a dusty memo at the Justice Department. Johnson knows that, but again, he was part of the Sedition Squad, so DEFLECT! DEFLECT! DEFLECT!
Hell, Johnson knew he was full of shit, assuring us he was Just Asking Questions:
JOHNSON: I don't know. But I'm suspicious.
Yeah, we know what happens when Ron Johnson is "suspicious." Recently it's involved spreading Russian propaganda about Hunter Biden and calling it a legitimate Senate investigation.
On the bright side, "I Don't Know But I'm Suspicious" would make a better title for Bartiromo's show than "Sunday Morning Futures." You know, unless it joins Lou Dobbs's show at a farm upstate with plenty of yard to run around on.
On a more normal Sunday show, "Face The Nation," GOP Senator Lindsey Graham continued saying the second Trump impeachment isn't constitutional and that Trump didn't commit crimes, after host Margaret Brennan played a tape of Graham saying quite the opposite on January 7.
.@margbrennan asks @LindseyGraham if former President #Trump deserves any formal reprimand for actions related to t… https://t.co/PWz7OaGm68— Face The Nation (@Face The Nation)1612713131.0
Graham, after having experiencing the Trump-incited attack January 6, told the truth in a rare moment of clarity on January 7. But Graham, ever the bottom-feeding remora, has now had time to figure out how to try to defend the indefensible.
Why? Don't know, but he had some racist talking points to say:
GRAHAM: I do believe that in 2022, the Republican Party is going to come roaring back because our friends on the Democratic Party, on the Democratic side, are going to change immigration policy to have caravan after caravan hit our borders.
The GOP is gonna "come roaring back" in 2022 by defending Trump's crimes and because Democrats are going to bring caravans to the border? OK.
Good luck with that, Linds, you delusional Trump toady.
Have a week!
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