From NY Post: Fired MSNBC host Joy Reid played Grinch on social media this week, sharing a video claiming beloved Christmas anthem “Jingle Bells” was written “to make fun of black people.”
In the video she shared to her 1.3 million Instagram followers, a man in a Christmas sweater and Santa hat stands on the streets of Medford, Massachusetts near a plaque marks the site where James Lord Pierpont is believed to have penned the song in 1850.
He takes off his hat disapprovingly and scowls at the plaque, the video caption reading “this is where a racist Confederate soldier wrote ‘Jingle Bells’ to make fun of black people, and has its origins in bigoted minstrel shows that were popular at the time.
The video captions go on to claim Pierpont — whose nephew grew up to be legendary financier J.P. Morgan — was hard up for cash when he composed “The One Horse Open Sleigh,” and did so expressly for its use in performances in which white actors put on blackface to “mock and caricature black people trying to participate in winter activities.”
The claim of the song’s allegedly racist roots started in 2017 with an academic article by Boston University professor Kyna Hamill. Hamill claims that Pierpont composed many songs for minstrel troupes in Boston and New York.
“The song’s veiled history as part of the antebellum blackface minstrel tradition demonstrates the problems that arise when the singular event comes to dominate discussion of performance practice,” Hamill wrote. ”I shall demonstrate that the song emerged from a practice that began on the northern minstrel stages of Boston and New York around 1853, in which a popular sleigh narrative that embeds a courting ritual became the target of burlesque.”
According to the Instagram post, the lyrics “laughing all the way” are “likely” a reference to a racist comedic routine known as the “Laughing Darkie” at the time. Pierpont later joined the Confederate Army where he wrote Southern fight songs to “rouse men defending slavery,” the video claims.
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