Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Jingle Bells, Racist?





Seriously? One of the most well-known 
and beloved of all Christmas songs recently came
under attack by a professor at Boston University
whose declared, just in time to make everyone
feel less jolly about the upcoming holiday, that
"Jingle Bells" which was originally titled,
"One Horse Open Sleigh" is racist in origin.







According to the historical research website,
American Music Preservation,
the song was inspired by a one horse sleigh race
held each year in Medford, Massachusetts.
 Resident James Pierpont wrote this "racy little ditty" at
Simpson's Tavern, a local boarding house, which
had the only piano in town. 
The song was first published in 1857.

After he wrote the song, Pierpont paid little notice
to it's increasing popularity until 1864, when a story
about the song appeared in the Salem Evening News,
and he accepted the credit for writing it.
And while there has been speculation that Pierpont
borrowed lines from a minstrel song written by Stephen Foster
while writing "Jingle Bells" this has remained unproven.

The only other mild controversy concerning this favorite holiday 
song is the continual debate as to whether the song was actually
written in Medford, or in Savannah, Georgia where 
James Pierpont later moved and performed as a church organist.
He also supported the South during the American Civil War,
writing such patriotic songs as "Strike For The South"
and "We Conquer Or Die".

Could Pierpont's support for the South be the real motive
behind his song being deemed racist?

There has been an ongoing assault by the political Left in
this nation, not only to demonize any and all things American,
but to systematically purge the history of our nation, and in
particular what the profoundly ignorant elitists in the media
and in higher academia call,
"The Lost Cause of the Confederacy".

  The professor making this outrageous claim insists
the holiday song, "Jingle Bells" was often used
 in minstrel shows, which were a popular form of
entertainment in the mid-to-late Victorian era in America.
Today we regard this type of entertainment of the past
 insulting to black Americans, however, "buffoonery in black face"
was far more popular in the big cities of the North and the East
then in any of the war devastated cities of the South.

After the War, blacks were no longer slaves in the South,
but their new found freedom was certainly not embraced by
many white citizens residing in the North. This was especially
conspicuous in many of the big metropolises like
New York, Philadelphia, and surprise, surprise, even Boston!
which regularly and eagerly hosted traveling minstrel shows.




JINGLE BELLS

Originally titled,
 "One Horse Open Sleigh"



Dashing through the snow
In a one horse open sleigh
O'er the fields we go
Laughing all the way

Bells on bob tail ring
Making spirits bright
What fun it is to ride and sing
A sleighing song tonight.

Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way,
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh.

Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way,
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh.











"The Sleigh Race"
"A Brush For The Lead"
Prints by Currier and Ives

"Jingle Bells"
(1857)
An American Christmas Carol
Written by James Lord Pierpont
(1822-1893)






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