Pirates angry over Gasparilla appropriation
A group of Gulf Coast pirates have officially filed a complaint with the state department over claims that Gasparilla is offensive to native pirate culture and the Tampa holiday is exploitative and appropriating their culture.
“First of all, beads have nothing to do with Pirates,” said Long John Turquoise, a pirate attached to the class action complaint. “Not only are they stealing our culture, they’re misappropriating us, and tarnishing our image!” He said in a huff.
“They’re making us look dumb!” Turquoise shouted as he stomped his peg leg.
Pirates have been following the controversy for years, communicating through social media groups and text threads, discussing how they could combat the offensive Tampa holiday.
“One of the pirates was actually thinking of holding an actual pirate attack during the mock-attack, just to really prove our point, but we all agreed that any illegal violence was not the right way to go, despite our pirate instincts.” Said Gavin Bluebeard, another pirate signed onto the formal complaint.
“We worked for literally centuries to cultivate our reputations, just to have our image made a joke during a Floridian parade.” Bluebeard pondered.
“It’s like the Harley Davidson restaurants. It’s a sacrilege to what it used to stand for. We were brutal outlaws! Killers! And now children are having their faces painted, a candy is being thrown from bedazzled floats… It’s a travesty!” Bluebeard said as he flipped up his eye patch to clean the lint off of it.
If the formal complaint is not heeded, the pirates are prepared to take legal action against the city, suing the affair planners, with a team of lawyers surprisingly supplied by the Seminole Indians.
“We’ve had to watch as young white men wore Native American headdresses to music festivals for years and years, but we didn’t want to risk our Casino status in court, so now we have an opportunity to get back at the appropriators through a proxy representative.” Said Chief Gary Dover, of the Seminole tribe.
If the pirates get what they want, the parade and festival will still continue, however the group of Gulf coast pirates will now earn 65% of all Gasparilla profits.
