Shades of Lassus Trombone - Jingle Bells Is Racist?

[officermayo]

Here we go again.

'Jingle Bells' is racist, claims video shared by Joy Reid | New York Post https://share.google/GvxVrAopSD5RiHbzj

[brassmedic]

I always laugh when someone cites the New York Post as a source.

[officermayo]

I always laugh when someone cites the New York Post as a source.

Shall I link all the different sources?
The story doesn't change.

[nateaff]

Stories like this are in my opinion largely a result of grifters looking for clicks, akin to the imaginary "War on Christmas". The context clues of "Fired MSNBC host" and "New York Post" should make it obvious this is a nothingburger fishing for engagement.

As for Lassus Trombone, I have no issue leaving something so closely associated with the ugly tradition of minstrelsy dead and buried. Leave it in the trash alongside Amos and Andy and Darkie Sunday School.

[brassmedic]

I always laugh when someone cites the New York Post as a source.

Shall I link all the different sources?
The story doesn't change.

"All" the different sources? Looks like this was picked up by New York Post, Fox News, and X, and that's about it. (Oh wait, Newsmax and Breitbart ran it too - that's a shocker. ) I'm not saying it isn't true; it just seems like Republicans going on yet another fishing expedition in their never ending quest for manufactured outrage. Oh nOeS iT's THe wAr On cHriStMas!!!!

[officermayo]

Shall I link all the different sources?
The story doesn't change.

"All" the different sources? Looks like this was picked up by New York Post, Fox News, and X, and that's about it. (Oh wait, Newsmax and Breitbart ran it too - that's a shocker. ) I'm not saying it isn't true; it just seems like Republicans going on yet another fishing expedition in their never ending quest for manufactured outrage. Oh nOeS iT's THe wAr On cHriStMas!!!!

Can you address the subject or are simply attacking the delivery method?

[LeTromboniste]

"All" the different sources? Looks like this was picked up by New York Post, Fox News, and X, and that's about it. (Oh wait, Newsmax and Breitbart ran it too - that's a shocker. ) I'm not saying it isn't true; it just seems like Republicans going on yet another fishing expedition in their never ending quest for manufactured outrage. Oh nOeS iT's THe wAr On cHriStMas!!!!

Can you address the subject or are simply attacking the delivery method?

I think the point being made is that the article you shared is a textbook example of ragebait. Its subject and tone are meant to make you angry that some woke elite is trying to take away your traditions. That's not what's happening here. Nowhere in the original video do I see anything about cancelling Christmas, or even ditching the song. It's just stating facts about the song's history. Yes, facts, because what the New York Post calls "claims" are for the most part established facts. The video is based on actual academic research, a tidbit of information that the New York Post conveniently places after the end of the article, all the pictures and captions and even below the comment section...wonder why they put it there.

So, the song DOES have racist origins in minstrelsy. Is pointing that out and discussing that history somehow wrong? Is it taboo to even acknowledge that the western world has a very racist past, and that that racist past can be found in all kind of things that are embedded in our culture today without us even knowing? If so, why?

I'm very curious to know what you're looking for in this discussion, and why you created this thread, before engaging further. Do you want to discuss history? Racism? Music? The discomfort of facing the knowledge that one of our beloved Christmas carols has a dark history? Or just complain about wokeness?

[Finetales]

The knowledge of Jingle Bells' minstrel blackface origins is hardly new. Even Wikipedia mentions it. Theater historian Kyna Hamill was the one who made that discovery almost a decade ago. Weird that people are writing it off as clickbait when a simple Google search tells you it's all facts.

Anyway, I always thought it was interesting that Jingle Bells made it into the standard Christmas canon. It's pretty dull. But maybe the "Jingle bells, Batman smells" version redeems it?

[brassmedic]

Can you address the subject or are simply attacking the delivery method?

I am attacking the delivery method. Your article starts out with "Fired MSNBC host Joy Reid played Grinch on social media this week". It goes on to attack Reid and doesn't address whether the claims are true or not. Classic ad hominem fallacy. Plus, you started your post with "Here we go again". Your agenda is clear. If you wanted to have a discussion about the racist origins of Jingle Bells, you should have just done that. You didn't; you chose to post a link to a tabloid rage-bait article. It has been asked already, but I will repeat: What is your motive in starting this thread? Are you disputing what the video shows? Are you saying Jingle Bells wasn't first performed in a minstrel show? I'm pretty sure it was.

[brassmedic]

Weird that people are writing it off as clickbait when a simple Google search tells you it's all facts.

I don't think anyone here said it's not factual. We're questioning the way this was presented by the New York Post.

[Matt K]

Not going to lie, a contentious discussion about Jingle Bells was... not on my bingo card.

Also, another utterance that I can't believe I'm saying: There's a pretty good recording of Jingle Bells recorded by the Glenn Miller orchestra from the early 90s: https://www.amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0088WJO5E; otherwise, I do agree that I don't find it in anywhere near the top of my list for seasonal songs!

[AtomicClock]

It's pretty dull.

While I agree with you now, 6-year-old me thought it was pretty great. IMHO, Christmas songs as a whole are mainly for children, and this one fits the bill.

[CBlair]

There is nothing new under the sun . . .

From CBS News:
Local News
'Utterly Disgusted': Parents, Students Voice Concerns Over Racist Jingle
December 10, 2018 / 11:19 PM EST / CBS Boston

We can't change the past, except maybe how we write about it. Can we do our best to be civil today?

[dwcarder]

Also, another utterance that I can't believe I'm saying: There's a pretty good recording of Jingle Bells recorded by the Glenn Miller orchestra from the early 90s: https://www.amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0088WJO5E;

That whole album is a lot of fun, as the arrangements are just so over the top glenn-millery.

[VJOFan]

Another source…. A transcript of an NPR show. It gives the history you’re all talking about but concludes that, the song has more or less outlived the darker implications of its origin and now is just enjoyed (or not) by a lot of people.

https://www.npr.org/2025/11/26/nx-s1-56 ... ngle-bells

[JTeagarden]

If I’m reading the bits properly, its racist tint is by virtue of having been performed in minstrel shows?

If that’s it, then so is virtually any piece of
Popular music performed in the US over a certain period of time, which feels like no real shocker.

[LeTromboniste]

If I’m reading the bits properly, its racist tint is by virtue of having been performed in minstrel shows?

If that’s it, then so is virtually any piece of
Popular music performed in the US over a certain period of time, which feels like no real shocker.

I think it's not so much that it was performed at minstrel shows as that it was written for minstrel shows, and that its lyrics, even though they contain nothing overtly racist, were probably originally meant to ridicule African-Americans enjoying winter activities.

Whether we want to stop using the song or not is a whole other question, but I don't think being at least aware of the history can be a bad thing.

[JTeagarden]

No, history is very much a 3-dimensional thing, proving over and over that people of goodwill had some real blind spots, and we are likely to have them as well.

The more stident "throw the baby out with the bathwater" variant seems to always go too far.

[Doug Elliott]

100% manufactured outrage designed to distract.

[Savio]

I hope all racism will stop.

Leif

[JTeagarden]

100% manufactured outrage designed to distract.

Yes, it's pretty stupid.

[LeTromboniste]

No, history is very much a 3-dimensional thing, proving over and over that people of goodwill had some real blind spots, and we are likely to have them as well.

The more stident "throw the baby out with the bathwater" variant seems to always go too far.

I won't debate that there is an overreactive, virtue-signaling slice of the population that sometimes goes too far. But I find the other end of the spectrum much more widespread, much more dangerous and much more "strident". The one that, in the baby and bathwater metaphor, basically says "there's a baby in the bath so don't you dare empty the bathwater lest you throw the baby out" when the "bathwater" filling the bath is actually toxic waste...

[JTeagarden]

To continue the bathwater analogy, this is more accurately an instance where someone noticed the bathwater started out toxic, and someone else decided it was useful say that person was claiming the bathwater remained so, 150 years or so later.

[imsevimse]

I hope all racism will stop.

Leif

/Tom

[LeTromboniste]

To continue the bathwater analogy, this is more accurately an instance where someone noticed the bathwater started out toxic, and someone else decided it was useful say that person was claiming the bathwater remained so, 150 years or so later.

Who is this "someone" in your analogy? Because I haven't really seen anyone call for cancelling the song

[JTeagarden]

To continue the bathwater analogy, this is more accurately an instance where someone noticed the bathwater started out toxic, and someone else decided it was useful say that person was claiming the bathwater remained so, 150 years or so later.

Who is this "someone" in your analogy? Because I haven't really seen anyone call for cancelling the song

Nor do I claim this to be the case.

Connecting all the dots: the academic article notes that this song started out as part of a minstrel show, without arguing for its removal from the canon, just a noting of what are facts which can be verified as true or not, then the right-wing blogosphere decides the article argues for something it does not.

A bit of highly choreopgraphed pearl-clutching, reacting to nothing at all.

[LeTromboniste]

Who is this "someone" in your analogy? Because I haven't really seen anyone call for cancelling the song

Nor do I claim this to be the case.

Connecting all the dots: the academic article notes that this song started out as part of a minstrel show, without arguing for its removal from the canon, just a noting of what are facts which can be verified as true or not, then the right-wing blogosphere decides the article argues for something it does not.

A bit of highly choreopgraphed pearl-clutching, reacting to nothing at all.

Ah yes, sorry, I totally misread your previous comment!

[JTeagarden]

Nor do I claim this to be the case.

Connecting all the dots: the academic article notes that this song started out as part of a minstrel show, without arguing for its removal from the canon, just a noting of what are facts which can be verified as true or not, then the right-wing blogosphere decides the article argues for something it does not.

A bit of highly choreopgraphed pearl-clutching, reacting to nothing at all.

Ah yes, sorry, I totally misread your previous comment!

No worries, it's hard to explain something this stupid!

It also highlights an unfortunate aspect of acedmic writing: All the interesting stuff has been covered, long ago...

A friend of mine housed a German exchange student who was writing her masters thesis at the University of Pittsburgh, which she explained "is about the delivery of medical services in Saarland between 1840 and 1855, not much has been written about it!"

"I'm so surprised!" was my sarcastic reply...