'Jingle Bells' Rooted in Racism, Boston University Professor Says (Who Knew?)

Fox News ^ | 12-15-2017 | Caleb Parke

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“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.

“Its origins emerged from the economic needs of a perpetually unsuccessful man, the racial politics of antebellum Boston, the city’s climate, and the intertheatrical repertoire of commercial blackface performers moving between Boston and New York,” Hamill wrote.

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Sheesh....

[txrefugee]

Deport all whiners, no matter their color. The loudest ones go first.

[fwdude]

What about “White Christmas?”

[dfwgator]

Funny, the only thing I think about when I hear it is Batman.

[Dilbert San Diego]

And what do they mean by gay apparel in “Deck the Halls”??? Isn’t that somehow a snub against the gay community?????

[dfwgator]

What about “White Christmas?”

Written by a Jooooooooo.

[Gay State Conservative]

Lemme guess....is this professor the Chairbeing of the Queer Studies Department?

[BenLurkin]

They’re nuts.

[AAABEST]

“Words such as ‘thro,’ ‘tho’t,’ and ‘upsot’ suggest a racialized performance that attempted to sound ‘southern’ to a northern audience,” Hamill wrote.

Thot is a denigrative slang term, originally defined as an acronym of “That hoe over there”
Thot|Know Your Meme

[donna]

Worthless.

[Gay State Conservative]

Oh,and BTW...staying with Boston news...a local Boston station reported this morning that the Boston School Committee's decision to change the starting time for certain students/classes from 8AM to 7:30AM was...wait for it:

RACIST!

With God as my Judge...it's true

[DoughtyOne]

We know what Jingle “bells” is code for.

It’s just a male dominated world and this song makes it clear how biased things have been for thousands of years.

Laugh if you like, but we need to rip off all these “bells.”

Merry Christmas!

And stop this undue respect for “bells”. It’s inherently a gender crime, and when these bells are light complected, it’s also evidence of a sick twisted ‘culture of privilege’ that has ruined Western civilization.

/s

[Da Coyote]

Guess these silly colleges thought “quotas” equalled “quality” when they hired intellectual wannabes like this idiot.

[dfwgator]

What about “I’ve got spurs that jingle jangle jingle...”?

[Mears]

The only thing I think about is this vulgar K Mart ad-—Jingle Bells.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3rHibpKMxc

.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Professor Hamill received her doctorate in Theatre History. She specializes in iconography of the Commedia dell’arte, theatre and war, and theatre semiotics. She has published articles in Print Quarterly, Theatre Symposium and The Performance of Violence in Contemporary Ireland. She also edited They Fight: Classical to Contemporary Stage Fight Scenes, a collection of stage combat scenes, with special attention paid to diverse weaponry and scenes for women.

Her current research project, Staging War from Troy to Iraq, explores how theatre confronts the topic of war across a broad historical, cultural and performative spectrum. Her favorite books in Core are Gilgamesh, the Aeneid, and Don Quixote.

[o-n-money]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X96Un6POoo8
Christmas at K Mart.

[DoughtyOne]

Just one more tool to dominate young maidens with...

“:^)

[onedoug]

This professor can go to hell!

[Fiji Hill]

James L. Pierpont, composer of "Jingle Bells," later wrote "Strike for the South"

Strike for the South, let her name ever be
The boast of the true and the brave.
Let freedom's bright star ever shine on her brow
And her banner the bravest to wave.
Strike for the South, shall the heroes who fell
In graves all in honor repose.
While the curve of each hand and the sword by its side
Has been stained with the blood of her foes.