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BU Prof Claims ‘Jingle Bells’ is Rooted in Racism

BU Prof Claims ‘Jingle Bells’ is Rooted in Racism

“racist origins have been subtly and systematically removed from its history”

The left sure knows how to ring in that holiday cheer, don’t they?

FOX News reports:

‘Jingle Bells’ rooted in racism, Boston University professor says

“Jingle Bells,” one of the most well-known Christmas carols in the world, is now being called racist.

A Boston University theater professor claims the Christmas carol has a “problematic history” because it was originally performed to make fun of African Americans.

“The legacy of ‘Jingle Bells’ is one where its blackface and racist origins have been subtly and systematically removed from its history,” Kyna Hamill, a BU theater historian, wrote in her “Theatre Survey” research paper on the story of “Jingle Bells.”

“Although ‘One Horse Open Sleigh,’ for most of its singers and listeners, may have eluded its racialized past and taken its place in the seemingly unproblematic romanticization of a normal ‘white’ Christmas, attention to the circumstances of its performance history enables reflection on its problematic role in the construction of blackness and whiteness in the United States,” she wrote.

Hamill started researching the history of the famous Christmas carol after a so-called “Jingle Bells War” – a dispute between two towns, Medford, Mass. and Savannah, Ga. – that claim to be the birthplace of the song written by James Pierpont.

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Comments

Kwanzaa isn’t racist?

I think Hamill’s brain is rooted in manure.

The Friendly Grizzly | December 17, 2017 at 3:23 pm

As I remarked at another site covering this story: My optimistic side wants to believe the good professor wrote all this up as a joke to see who would take the bait. Then my realistic side comes forward and I know she is dead serious.

Like Grizzly, I have also given a history of the song in detail at another site. The “professor” is extraordinarily ignorant. The minstrel shows she refers to were 30 years after the song was composed. The bells are old reign bells, large enclosed bells used to warn pedestrians of a sleigh. They can still be found in miniature in hobby shops. The song is actually about a beau and his girl friend, Ms Fanny Bright, having a rather adventurous ride. He falls out of the moving sleigh.
It was a ribald and fun thanksgiving ballad.

It’s not a Christmas carol, it’s a Thanksgiving song (and so, in my opinion, there’s no reason for Jews to avoid it).

You should take note, this is a “professor” at Boston U.

This is what they wish to do to everything.

This just proves that mentally ill does not prevent lucrative employment.

Michelle Obama’s Masters Thesis was a real thigh-slapper too. Rather pedestrian Racism, in my view. https://www.politico.com/pdf/080222_MOPrincetonThesis_1-251.pdf