“If you look at the box, you can see that the pirate figure is clearly a crew member on the pirate ship and not a captive,” according to the statement. “The figure was meant to represent a pirate who was a former slave in a historical context. It was not our intention to offend anyone in anyway.”

Dark-skinned Playmobil pirate-ship doll wearing ‘slave collar’ ignites outrage – The Washington Post

I fucking hate shit like this. Loud whining and crying while totally missing the context. Just because you take something wrong and fly off the handle doesn’t mean it is offensive or derogatory. Sometimes, just sometimes, nobodies hating but the ones doing the bitching about the hating.

There was a significant number of pirates who had escaped the bonds of slavery and signed on with a pirate ship. It’s part of our society’s actual history. It represent emancipation for the crew members involved and most certainly an advancement of his individual condition to one where he was participating in socially stratified but still somewhat democratic culture on-board ship. That’s a good thing. It’s a good thing to remember that taking up piracy was one of the ways slaves did escape back in those troubled times.

Calling this nod to one of the few safe havens for former slaves racist is so fucking ignorant that even my whiteness can’t stop me from calling bullshit on these reactionaries. Usually I defer to the wisdom of listening instead of speaking in matters of race -and I can’t truly blame any individual American for the piss poor quality of their education- but seriously, this stuff is some seriously reactionary, ignorant, bullshit.

Context, people! Context!!!